Eyes of Lilith
by Iwasbored
Summary: AU: A what if story should Yokai Academy never existed and humans are still blissfully unaware of the monsters that hide among them.
1. Chapter 1

For those of you who enjoyed Face of Humanity and are waiting for the next update to come out, this is just something I came up prior to the chapter 12 or 13 so that you would have something to read during the small break. It will be quite a bit different from my other fanfiction, but I still hope you enjoy this nonetheless. Whether this continues or not really depends on how well received this is (in other words, favorable reviews, favorites, or follows).

Disclaimer: I do not own R+V and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking"

"I'm Aono Tsukune and I can't say that there is particularly interesting about me. If anything, I am so ordinary that it is borderline extraordinary. I hope we can all get along this year," I said jokingly as I introduced myself to the class. Many of my new classmates giggled or straight up laughed at how ridiculous my introduction was. It was not like any introduction they had heard before, so how could they not laugh. I hadn't introduced myself like some braggart or someone who was trying to hide away. The funny thing was that despite how I was joking around, I was really stating a fact.

I sat back down in my seat after my introduction and listened to the remaining snickers die down in the background. The next person to get up was my childhood friend Mizore. The purple-haired girl was the only familiar face I saw in the classroom. She stood up quickly to introduce herself to the class and spoke coolly.

"I'm Shirayuki Mizore, and the guy before me was telling the truth. It is quite outstanding at how normal he is. I hope we can all get along this year."

The class's response was quite humorous. I saw most of my classmates just laugh at how I was introduced twice. The teacher seemed distraught as well over the fact that it seemed like we were all taking the first day of class as a joke. It kind of was, since we would all be going home after orientation. I also noticed that Mizore had managed to slip away from the other classmates' attention by using me as a literal meat shield. I kind of wished she would be a little bit more outgoing. I liked the fact that she was my friend and all, but it felt weird knowing that I might actually be her only friend.

The introductions rolled on as each guy and a few girls tried to make their own introductions as quirky as ours. It was quite interesting seeing what shenanigans the last few guys tried to pull off in order to show off. I was amazed at how some girls had enough courage to actually start singing in the middle of class. Four guys even started to sing in a quartet at some point. I felt so sorry for our teacher who was just trying to get through the day at this point.

As the last person had announced themselves, our teacher let out a sigh of relief.

"It looks like everyone is here. Now let's all go to the auditorium and do not pull these stunts there. I could get into serious trouble if you acted that way in front of the school," she let out in an exasperated tone.

"Yes Nekonome-sensei," we all chanted in unison. We then all started to file out of the room. I noticed that the singing quartet had actually grouped up together already. It appeared like they all knew each other from middle school. I was considering talking to them, but I felt a small tug on the back of my uniform. I didn't need to look back to know who it was.

"Mizore, you know you can't keep clinging onto me forever right?" I asked her as evenly as possible. I knew she was shy, but we were in high school now. She really needed to learn how to make friends before we got shipped off to whatever college or job we could scrounge up. We were both very likely going to be forced to go searching for jobs considering how average our grades were. Her inability to connect with others made me really nervous about her future.

I turned back to look at Mizore. Her face was stoic for the most part. The only exception was that she had downcast eyes. I also noticed that she was popping another one of her hard candies into her mouth. Mizore always had the habit of doing that whenever she was nervous or just felt any negative emotion in general. It was my way of telling when I had upset her, and also my cue to drop whatever I was doing to make her feel better.

I placed my hand on top of her head and began to pet her. I knew she liked it whenever I did this because she knew it meant that I wanted to make her feel better. It also meant that I was just telling her I was worried about her and not scolding her.

After a few seconds, I pulled my hand away and we started to head to the auditorium. No one seemed to have seen our moment since everyone was already a bit down the hall when we had left. Nekonome-sensei hadn't even checked whether or not we were with the group. I guess if we really wanted to we could have just left to go have fun, but we had already put her through so much today. The both of us were the cause for the circus show we called an introduction. I really didn't want to get her in trouble on top of that.

I motioned to Mizore that we needed to hurry up or we would be left behind. She looked up and gave me a reluctant look since it was a bit bothersome, but she yielded since she knew I was right. While we quietly trotted, I managed to overhear some of the guys who were lagging talking about how they felt about our classmates.

"Who do you think is the hottest girl in our class?"

"It definitely has to be Kurumu. Her figure and that face just can't be beat."

"Really? I thought you would be more into Moka."

"As a person? Probably. She sounds really cute and sweet from how innocent her introduction was. But we are talking about who is the hottest in out class."

"Well Moka has got my vote."

I quit listening after this point. Even though I knew it was just guys talking about who they were attracted to, I just didn't really feel too connected to it. I didn't even really know who the two girls they were talking about outside of the fact that they were in my class as well. For all I know, I might never actually get to know them too well. I wasn't really popular with the girls since I didn't stick out. Mizore and my cousin were the only girls that I had really connected with.

Mizore must have overheard the guys as well and tugged my uniform to get my attention.

"Who did you think was the prettiest girl in our class?" she asked gently and clearly. How exactly was she able to speak so clearly with that hard candy in her mouth?

"You know I'm not concerned about looks Mizore," I stated without thinking too much into the question she asked. I could have easily said that she was the prettiest girl, but she would have just said I was just saying that to flatter her. I didn't want to say that for another reason. Even though I really liked spending time with Mizore, I didn't want her to become too reliant on me. I knew she liked me, but I was slightly pushed away from how interested she seemed to be. I was the only boy she talked to, so something told me that her love wasn't really love. Something just felt off when I thought about how she felt about me.

I didn't have time to see her expression as we entered the auditorium to sit down. The auditorium was quite large and had many rows of seats placed in front of the podium. I didn't actually think that they would have taken the trouble to take out the chairs since it was a hassle, and we could have just stood in place. That was when a thought passed through my mind that I didn't enjoy. What if the orientation speech was actually long enough to require us to sit down? I saw a few of the other guys in the room give a small frown as the same thought dawned on their minds. Some of the teachers were just placing their hands on their heads as though they knew they would hate what was to come. Everyone's reactions were just comfirming my fears.

Looking around, I found where our class was going to sit; we made our way to the chairs and made sure that the teachers didn't notice that we were coming in a bit later than the rest of the class. When we had actually made it there, some of the guys gave us a look. The guy left to me gave me a light punch to get my attention. I saw him giving me a thumbs up and a smile. This guy must have thought that I had already gotten myself a girlfriend. It was hard to blame him considering our introductions and how we had come later than everyone else. I just waved my hand to tell him that he was mistaken. He gave a confused look, but dropped the issue as the principal came up to the podium.

"Welcome incoming students. I would like to start off by saying congratulations to each and every one of you for making it to high school. Now I know that you are all probably excited about what awaits you for the next three years of your life. I will warn you that you will come across many moments when you will feel that the world is completely against you, but fear not. I am quite certain that you will make many friends along the way who will help you get through these trials. The entire staff is also here to make sure that you learn what you need to learn in order to get by in life…"

I felt a sharp pinch on my right side. Mizore woke me up so that I wouldn't get in trouble with the teachers for sleeping during the principal's 'exhilarating' speech. It appears that I had dozed off early on and the principal had continued to ramble on about high school life and camaraderie the whole time I had been out. Looking at my watch, I realized that the principal had actually been talking about his personal philosophies for about forty-five minutes. As much as I could see how spouting philosophical lines made one look and sound more important, the principal had actually forgone any real meaning for just looking smart and profound.

After another few minutes, the principal concluded his speech by allowing the Kaneshiro Hokuto, the student body president, up onto the podium. A tall student walked up and confidently spoke into the microphone left behind.

"Welcome to this school. There is only one thing I really want to tell you. High school is one of the last havens before you have to go into the real world. It is the last place you can really be a kid still. I only ask that as all of you grow up in the three years you will spend here, don't ever wish for it to go by faster. Just enjoy this time as much as you can and leave with no regrets to drag you down."

With that, Hokuto left the stage. We were all dismissed and many of us were probably thanking Hokuto for not dragging on like the principal had. Most of the students seemed to have no motivation to even hang out today since the speech had just put most of us to sleep. Even the teachers seemed to be acting lethargic.

"Tsukune, are we still going to go buy Kyoko a birthday present or do you just want to go home today?" Mizore asked me.

I did promise to go shopping with Mizore since school was going to end early today. I also knew that I couldn't say that I wanted to go home since Mizore had been looking forward to it. She may have a great poker face, but I could still tell that she enjoyed hanging out.

"Let's go find something for Kyouko. We need to find her a gift soon," I responded. My response didn't make her smile, but I saw a small shift in her eyes. She was definitely happy.

The old shopping district wasn't too far from the school. Although the one we normally went to was close to home, we wanted to surprise Kyouko with a gift she couldn't just buy there. There weren't many shops that sold items that would interest my older cousin since most of them were just bookstores or small local food stands. It made finding stores that would actually sell unique trinkets for my tomboy of a cousin easier to find.

After looking through a few shops and buying a few sticks of Tsukune, we found ourselves in front of a rickety old shop hidden in a small corner of the street. The store looked dusty and filled with several interesting window items. If we were going to find Kyouko a gift, this was the perfect place to buy it from. There was almost no chance the she would have been able to find anything like what we could possibly buy in this store. I could also get something interesting for Mizore while we were looking for the gift.

As we walked through the door, we heard the store owner in the corner say, "Welcome." I couldn't get a clear look of the man, but I could almost swear that his eyes were glowing for a second. I must have been more tired than I thought if I was seeing things.

There were a lot of shelves and items everywhere. It would take forever to find something if we didn't split up. Mizore must have had the same idea since she motioned she was going to go in one direction. After a few seconds, I could already hear her shuffling through some of the shelves. I headed into a different direction and browsed through all of the items.

A lot of things had a layer of dust on them from not being moved for so long. There shouldn't be this much dust lying around everywhere if people would actually come here to buy some of the stuff. How did this place manage to stay open for so long if no one had come here for a long time? A lot of things I assumed to be jewelry lacked the luster that they should have because it was all covered with the dust.

Out of curiosity of what was actually in the pile of jewelry, I began to shift through it. I found several interesting ornaments with several different gems embedded on them. After wiping away some of the dust, I realized that a lot of the gems were of high quality just from the clarity and lack of chips in them. What exactly went through this store for such expensive goods to come through? There were definitely interesting items in the pile. Although they probably wouldn't interest Kyouko outside of monetary value, I'm sure there was something I could find to celebrate the first day of high school with Mizore. I also wanted to get her something because I felt a bit harsh in telling her that she needed to make more friends.

After digging through the pile a bit more, I realized that most of the jewelry was more than likely outside of my price range. It might even be out of the price range for a majority of the city. The deeper I got, the more priceless the jewelry seemed to get. It looked like all of the 'affordable' jewelry was pulled out for observation. I still dug a bit deeper since there was always the chance that people were just interested in the expensive look of the others and had forgone the reasonably priced goods.

I eventually reached the bottom of the pile after sifting through all of the valuables and found something I could afford. At the very bottom, there was a small silver locket. The surface wasn't scratched and the whole thing was in the shape of an oval. It looked like one of those necklaces one wore in the movies. When I checked inside, I noticed that the glass that would hold the pictures was missing. I would need to get someone to add it in, and this would probably give me some room to bargain for the price.

Having found something that I thought Mizore would like, I resumed my search to find something for Kyouko. I began to see some old music boxes as I kept walking. I think one of the boxes was actually shaking and I didn't want to know why. This place was already creepy in its atmosphere.

After walking around for another five minutes, I realized that this store was much bigger on the inside than it had looked on the outside. The store should have simply ended by now, but it still seemed to go on. I must have just been overwhelmed by the atmosphere to think of something that ridiculous. Over course there was no way the store was that long. I still ended up turning back in case it wasn't my imagination.

When I turned around, I saw a face staring out at me from the side. There was a look of surprise as it recognized that I was looking at it and I jumped back wondering why there was a face staring at me from the wall. I made a small yelp and was about to run from the scene. I was going to run, but I noticed that I was just looking at my reflection

I was such a wimp to be scared of my own reflection. I looked back into it and saw my brown eyes and black hair. My face had no distinguishing traits other than that. I could have easily been mistaken for another person only for the sheer fact of how common my features were here. It was still embarrassing to have been so scared of my own image.

As I was looking into the small circular mirror, I thought to myself that this would be the perfect gift. Although Kyouko acted like a tomboy, she had become more interested in trying to look a bit more feminine. Something told me that this mirror wasn't too girly, but at the same time would show that I did notice the subtle change. After grasping both sides so that I could take the mirror down, I heard footsteps coming from where I came from. It looks like Mizore had heard my yelp and was worried.

All of a sudden, there was a large flash of light that came from the mirror. I was blinded for a few seconds and was startled enough to actually back off from the mirror. I ended up backing up against the wall and fell down.

"Tsukune! Are you okay?"

I still had my closed from the shock of what had just happened, but I could definitely feel that Mizore was next to me. What exactly happened I wondered as I slowly opened my eyes. Why was there a mirror like that in a store? If this was a joke that the store owner liked to pull, I could see why no one had been in the store for so long.

"I'm okay Mizore?" I said as I looked at where Mizore was supposed to be.

The person next to me wasn't the Mizore that I had known all of my life. Instead of Mizore, I saw a girl with long icy hair. It sparkled, but looked like ice instead of hair. I also noticed the large claws of ice for hands. I panicked at the sight of the claws. There was a monster here with claws, and I was in a vulnerable position. I backed further up to the wall and let out a small scream.

The scream startled the girl and she reached out to me with her claws. I just panicked more, and my actions caused her to hesitate. She could see the evident fear I had, but didn't seem to understand at all. That was when she pulled something from her pocket. I only got a small glimpse of it, but it looked like the hard candies that Mizore liked to have. She then popped it into her mouth and I saw that her eyes were downcast. They were blue like Mizore's and she had the same neutral expression on her face. I instinctively placed my hand on her head and began to stroke it. She didn't move away from it. The feeling felt familiar and it was not like I was brushing my hand through a bundle of ice.

"Mi-Mizore?" I hesitantly said. Her face looked just like Mizore and she wore the same uniform that we entered with. She even had the same habit of popping those candies into her mouth whenever she felt down. The girl was also familiar with me since she didn't push away my hand when I had put it on her head. She also knew my name. This monster in front of me had to be Mizore. But why did she look like that?

"Tsukune, is everything alright?" she asked hesitantly. I had just had a panic attack at the sight of my childhood friend in her eyes. I had to calm down. This was Mizore and she wouldn't hurt me. Even if she looked like a monster right now, she was still the girl I had known since we were kids.

"Mizore, I'm fine now. The thing is, why do you have claws for hands and why does your hair look like ice?" I asked as I felt my heart rate start to slow down.

My question seemed to have shocked Mizore as she began to look at her hands. After affirming whatever she saw, she began to pat her hair. She maintained the same face, but I could tell she was quite confused through how her eyes were darting about. Mizore then decided to look at what I had been holding earlier. She peered into it and I assumed she saw what I was seeing as she went through another panic over her appearance. The only difference was that she couldn't see what I was seeing in the physical world.

"How can you see my real form Tsukune?" she asked me with a slight look of fear in her eyes. I also saw her hand reach for her pocket to probably get another candy to put into her mouth.

I picked myself up and dusted myself. I had managed to calm myself down enough to accept that the ice covered Mizore in front of me was still Mizore. There was nothing to be too worried after knowing this. I got closer to her and placed my hand on her head again. I was telling her that everything would be okay. I glanced up at the mirror and we both already knew that it had something to do with it.

"Mizore, let's just drop the issue for today. It might be only temporary. We'll come back here later to talk to the store owner about what happened if I am still seeing things. So let's just go home for now, okay?"

I really wanted to calm Mizore down. I knew my reaction had hurt her badly. She was still herself, yet I became so scared of her after seeing what she really was. I wanted to just push away what had just happened. It was a tiring day for both of us anyways.

Mizore remained silent, but nodded her head. We proceeded to head towards the exit. I remembered that I was actually buying a gift for Mizore so I asked her to wait outside the door for a few seconds. I just told her that I found something interesting and wanted to buy it. She asked if it was for Kyouko, but I just told her that was what the mirror was going to be for.

I quickly rushed to where the store owner would be. The only thing was that he wasn't there. Instead, there was a sign that just said to take the locket. Was the store owner watching us? Even if it was his job to make sure we wouldn't steal his merchandise, it still felt really creepy considering what I had just gone through. I didn't want to feel like I was just taking something for free, so I decided to leave a thousand yen behind. It probably wasn't enough, but it was supposed to be free in the first place.

Rushing back out, I found Mizore still waiting outside and still looking like she was made out of ice. I trotted up next to her and motioned to her that I was ready. We walked down the road home, but I could see that she was sad. She was getting another hard candy.

"Mizore, what's wrong?" I asked despite knowing it had something to do with how I saw her.

"Do you hate me now knowing what I am now?" she asked as she tensed up slightly. She had to be nervous. How could she not? It wasn't too long ago that her only friend did freak out after finding out that she was a monster.

"I will admit that I was slightly scared at first, but that was only because of the claws. The fact is that you are still you. Why should I see you any different than before?" I said honestly.

"I see," she said quietly. I felt her lean against my side and I didn't push her away. Mizore needed a shoulder to lean on after what I had put her through. We made our way back in silence as the events of the day ran through our heads.

"Oh my. Aren't you getting cozy with my daughter?"

The feminine voice startled me because it had appeared out of thin air. Mrs. Shirayuki always had the habit of appearing when we least expected it. I would have been less startled usually since I got used to it, but I got a little bit worried about what I would see. She was Mizore's mother and I was still trying to adjust to the fact that monsters did indeed exist in this world. I slowly looked back and saw that Mrs. Shirayuki still looked pretty much the same as the last time I had seen her. She still had snow white hair, her eyes were still blue and she also had the lollipop coming from her mouth like always. The only difference was that she just looked a tad bit paler and she also had claws where her hands would normally be.

"Hello Mrs. Shirayuki. How are you this evening?" I responded so as not to appear rude.

"Please call me Tsurara or mother. So when can I expect my grandchildren?"

Although most people probably would have been startled or shocked by how eccentric Mrs. Shirayuki was, I had gotten used to her personality after hanging out with Mizore so much. I always did wonder why she kept talking about wanting to have grandchildren when I was sure that she was barely into her thirties.

"Please stop joking like that Mrs. Shirayuki. Mizore and I aren't even dating," I said in a light hearted tone. It was nice to know that nothing had changed from before. It was then I remembered what would come.

"Call me Tsurara already, I'm not joking, and you better mean that you two weren't dating **yet** or that you are planning to get married soon," she said darkly. Tsurara had forgone the usual elegant smile she had and was giving me a look that told me anything could happen and would happen if I didn't listen to her. It didn't exactly help my courage when her hands, that were now grabbing my shoulder, looked like claws. Why exactly did she want grandchildren so badly that she was trying to get me to marry Mizore already?

Fortunately, Mizore stepped in to calm her mother down. I never knew how she did it, but Mizore would only need to talk to Tsurara in private to calm her down. It would be really helpful to know what Mizore told her mother so that I could use it in case I stepped on a landmine.

We continued to walk back and talk about how our day went. Even though my vision had changed drastically, I felt happy that my days hadn't really changed too much. Mizore seemed to be feeling better as well as she realized that nothing had really changed between us. The only thing that worried me was how my life would turn out now. I could clearly see who was a monster and who was not now. How would my life change after knowing that monsters were hidden among the humans? I knew my life would take a turn after coming to high school, but this was a lot more than I bargained for.

Author's Note(s)

#1: Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Any and all reviews help. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them by the next chapter. I do read them and consider editing previous chapters for better flow or explanations.

#2: Tsukune is actually a food. It is basically a handmade meatball made of chicken that is stuck onto a stick and grilled with a sauce. The name is strangely appropriate for the canon Tsukune.

#3: Also I decided to actually reduce my use some of the Japanese honorifics because it gets really confusing trying to remember how people would address each other after a while. Some will obviously stay, but for the most part I hope that this doesn't take away from some of the experience for people who actually like to read them.


	2. Chapter 2

Alright, exams are almost over, and due to the favorable responses, here is chapter 2.

Disclaimer: I do not own R+V and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking"

My alarm clock was ringing loudly on my desk. I usually had trouble getting up in the mornings, but I was wide awake. I found it to be impossible to have gone to sleep after what I had seen yesterday and what I hoped I could have unseen. It would have been better if what I had gone through yesterday wasn't real and had just been some crazy dream. If someone had told me that, I would have believed them. There was no way monsters could exist in the world.

"Tsukune, get up already or you'll keep Mizore waiting!" my mother yelled from the first floor.

My alarm was still going off, so mother must have thought that I was just ignoring it. I really didn't want to see Mizore right now. As fine as things were between us, I didn't want to confirm my fears. If what happened yesterday wasn't a hallucination, I would probably start having a few more panic attacks from finding out what other monsters there were out there.

Although I was scared at the thought that I could see monsters now, I knew that I really shouldn't. My best friend was a monster and was a good person. We've known each other for years and she hasn't done anything to harm me. But I still couldn't help get the feeling that the monsters that I hadn't gotten to know would harm me in some way.

After quelling the butterflies in my stomach, I managed to pick myself up to turn off the clock and pull myself together for the day. With each minute that passed as I brushed my teeth, I began to wonder why Mizore hadn't told me about what she was before. I knew that I probably would have still had a mild panic attack, but it probably would have hurt Mizore a lot less than the one I showed her yesterday.

After finally getting dressed and cleaned up, I walked done the stairs and found that Mizore was sitting at the table and helping herself to an apple. I gave a small mental sigh as I realized that parts of her still looked like they were made of ice like yesterday. It looked like I would have to go back to that creepy shop to ask the owner what was going on.

Despite my initial dismay over Mizore's appearance, I noticed that her monster form looked beautiful. The icy look for her hair glistened in the light. Her face was also paler than before, but it made her complexion appear flawless. The only problem I had with her new appearance was that I kept seeing the claws. Even then, she looked really beautiful.

Mizore noticed me and gave me a nervous look. She was still a bit scared about whether or not I could still see her monster form. She hesitantly called out to me.

"We need to go if we want to get to school on time Tsukune."

I could tell she was just trying to prevent me from telling her that I could still see what she was. It was hard to blame her considering that I was so scared yesterday.

"Yeah…" I said and we walked out of the house together to go to school.

The sun was bright and the air was cool. Looking around, it seemed that most of the students in the area were already a bit far off in the direction to the school. They were too far for me to hear any chattering, so they would be very unlikely to hear us talking to each other.

As we walked side by side, we remained silent for a while. Even without looking, I could sense that Mizore was on the verge of popping another one of her candies into her mouth. It was awkward and one of us needed to step up. Try as I might, I found it hard to actually break the silence. Why was it so difficult to do so now when we both could speak naturally yesterday?

After working up a large effort, the most I could manage was to just place my hand on her head. I just brushed my fingers through her shiny hair to let her know that I didn't really mind her new appearance too much. As I was stroking her head, I felt it move towards me as she leaned to my side.

"So are you still able to see the real me?" Mizore asked quietly.

"Yeah," I said gently.

I was waiting for her to eat another piece of candy like she would always do, but she never did. I was sure that she would have been upset that I could still see what she looked like as a monster. Was she actually happy that I could still see?

I noticed that most of the students had actually pulled farther away and noted that that was probably a bad sign.

"Come on Mizore. We really need to run or else we will be late," I said as I pulled one of her claws. I noticed that as I did this that my hand went through the claw until I managed to grab her hand. It looks like what I was seeing was really an illusion of some type if I could only grab her hand. We quickly jogged to the school hand in hand. Her hand was cool and soft like it always was. It wasn't cold and hard like the claws should have been.

When we actually made it to school, I instantly regretted coming back to school today. Several of my classmates now appeared with extra appendages, tails, lengthy necks, wings, and just about any feature that glaringly pointed out that they weren't human. I had to keep my cool or else these monsters would know that I knew what they really were.

Both Mizore and I just made our way to our class and seats so that another day of class could go by. Class would start soon and I would just have to focus my attention towards the lesson. I could at least ignore how my normal little bubble of a world had been crushed.

"Morning class! Let's have a great day and please behave yourselves," a very energetic voice came from Nekonome-sensei as she walked through the door.

My head immediately dropped to the surface of my desk. If there was really a god, he must have a sick sense of humor. Our teacher had come bounding in with a long tail trailing behind her and I could see that the top of her head now had ears protruding from it. I could only ask the image in my head one question. Why was our teacher a cat girl? If I had wanted to ignore the existence of monsters for a short while, it was made obvious to me that that wouldn't be at school.

"Ehh, is everything okay Mr. Aono?" the cat girl asked with a touch of concern when she saw me head drop down onto my desk with a resounding thud.

"It's nothing. I guess I was still a bit sleepy," I said sheepishly to cover up my small show. Although I said this, Mizore already knew that something was off for my reaction. Judging by how her eyes kept shifting between me and the teacher, I could guess that she was unaware of the fact that our teacher was a monster before. It looked like monsters really had no way of telling whether who was or wasn't a monster either.

"Well let's start the lesson shall we? Please try to stay awake with us Mr. Aono," the teacher said innocently.

Although she had told me not to drift off, I still did. The lessons seemed to drag on and it wasn't until nearly the end of the first half of class did my attention actually got pulled back into the classroom.

"Before we all go to lunch, I would like to make a quick announcement. We need to pick two class representatives for this class, one boy and one girl more specifically. I know you just got to know each other recently, but are there any nominations? I'll even take self-nominations," Nekonome-sensei told to the entire class.

I am not even sure why I was paying attention to this part and not to the actual lecture since I didn't even want to be the class representative. Like Nekonome-sensei said, we just met each other and didn't even have time to get to really know each other. The only people who would get it were the ones that wanted it.

"I think Tsukune should be the guy's representative," someone cried out to the teacher.

I stand corrected. The first nomination wasn't a self-nomination. It came from someone who nominated a person named Tsukune. I don't recall there being a second guy named Tsukune. Even so, he must be really outgoing if people were already nominating him. I scanned the room to see if anyone was reacting to being called out. When I saw everyone was looking at me, I felt my attempts to hide away from the painful truth come crumbling down.

"Okay class. Who here thinks that Mr. Aono should be the class representative? Give him a loud applause if you think so," the teacher called out to us with a chipper voice.

Everyone in the class started to clap their hands at my unanimous inauguration. Wasn't there going to be at least one guy who opposed? Looking around, I wondered why the girls were even clapping considering that they would only have to be concerned about which girl they would sacrifice to the task. I also saw Mizore giving me two thumbs up. She knew I was trying to be a bit more social this year, but she still didn't understand that I wasn't getting into the position out of my own free will or for popularity. I was just the guy that got stuck with the job. Who did nominate me anyways? It's not like it mattered anymore.

We still needed a girl representative and no one seemed to want to put out their own nominations or someone else. Nekonome-sensei gave a frown over the lack of enthusiasm we had. This class, despite how rowdy we were on the first day, was having a really hard time getting a second lamb. Why was it so easy to have put me on the altar?

The teacher gave a sigh. I was about to nominate Mizore before the teacher would complain about where our enthusiasm had gone, but a girl called out to the teacher in a gentle and slightly flustered voice.

"I'll do it Nekonome-sensei."

We all looked to where the self-nomination came from. I saw a girl wearing a black choker and silver cross standing tall. She had long silver hair that managed to stretch below her lower back and, it had a slight shine from the light that ran down her hair. Her figure was also on the borderline of what most would call perfection if it was not outright called perfect in the first place. The skin on her face was also smooth and clear of any blemishes. Her entire image nearly screamed out royalty if it were not for the gentle feeling in that was exuded in her voice.

"Ms. Akashiya right? What does everyone else think?" the cat girl asked.

Everyone applauded, but much less enthusiastically before. I noticed that many of the guys were giving slight faces of regret. They had all probably wanted to get to date the girl I was going to be working with for the rest of the school year. Karma really did exist in this world.

The bell rang and people started to rush out in order to get in line for the cafeteria. The only people who actually stuck around after the majority were Mizore, a male student, the female class representative and me. I was about to get up to head to the roof with Mizore since we came with packed lunches, but the other girl in the classroom walked up to me.

"I'm Akashiya Moka, I hope we get along this year," she said with a hopeful tone, but she sounded less confident and more questioning in her greeting. I guess she was a bit afraid that since I had been nominated against my will I would be apathetic as well. Her red eyes were even giving me a look that made it really hard not to breakdown my natural shyness.

"I'm Aono Tsukune and I hope we do get along as well," I said as I gave her a small smile and with my hand extended for a handshake.

For some reason though, she didn't shake my hand, and she just moved out of the room quickly. My hand dropped to my side over the sudden change in attitude and the person who I had been talking to was replaced with the guy I recognized from yesterday. The black-haired guy looked exactly the same as yesterday except for the two leathery wings that were extending from his back and the long tail that was flipping behind his back. His yellow eyes were flitting up and down as though he was trying to figure something out about me. After he a while, he let out a long sigh.

"Man. Tsukune how did you manage to get her attention? Are you some sort of incubus and placed a charm on her?"

This is quite ironic. This guy was a monster and was accusing me of being one. If it weren't for my eyes, I would still be under the impression that the monster in front of me was also another normal human guy. That being said, I got the feeling that he was trying to figure out whether or not one of his own kind was actually here and possibly interfering with whatever high school debut or plan he was going to do.

"What makes you say that? I just thought she didn't want Nekonome-sensei to get frustrated like yesterday," I said with a slightly cautious tone.

With that, the person who I was sure was an incubus walked out. He was giving me a small wave to wish me luck with my new duties. Even though he was doing this, the image of his tail gave a quick swat at my face to indicate obvious irritation. I guess my natural luck or misfortune with girls hurt his pride as an incubus.

Seeing how no one was in the room anyways, I motioned to Mizore that we should just eat lunch in the classroom today. After giving me an inquisitive look with her stoic face, she gave a small nod. Although I had wanted to be more outgoing and make more friends, I could already tell that that ship had sailed. The guys in our year would probably hate me or be jealous over the fact that I would be spending a lot of time with Moka. They probably should have waited for the girls to have decided their representative before assigning me the task.

As we ate, we were silent for almost the entire time that we were eating our lunch. It was always like this. I would always have to be the one to initiate the conversation with Mizore because she was so shy. Usually I would have begun the conversation earlier to break the awkward air, but I found it difficult today. I really wanted to know why she had hidden her identity from me all this time, but I was scared that doing so might do irreparable damage to our friendship. I found myself trying to work up the courage to ask several times, but almost every time my mouth couldn't speak.

"Are you interested in that pink-haired girl?"

I saw that Mizore had actually stopped eating and had her chopsticks gripped tightly in her hand. Her other hand was already below the desk, probably because of her habit when she was nervous. I wanted to calm her down and stop her from getting another piece of candy. The only problem was I had no idea what she was asking.

"What pink-haired girl?" I asked hesitantly. I was starting to get an idea of who she was talking about as soon as I asked this, and something told me that I wasn't going to like what Mizore would confirm.

"I'm talking about Moka… of… course…" Mizore tried to say coolly, but her voiced had trailed off in the end as she too realized the situation.

Students were now filing back into the classroom as the lunch break was over. Our conversation was cut short since we couldn't reveal that monsters existed to our human classmates. Our teacher came in and I sat through the class with worried thoughts floating through my head.

Despite the initial worry for the first half of the afternoon class, I felt myself calm down a bit. Moka may be a monster, but she actually seemed like a nice girl from my first impression of her. Plus, she probably wouldn't do anything to me in the first place since it would bring too much attention to her. There was only one thing that bothered me. Like the incubus pointed out, I had to wonder if Moka was actually interested in me in some way and how so.

The bell rang before I knew it, and both Moka and I were given our first task as class representatives. We were both sent out to the lab room to take inventory of the chemicals and tools. As we began to walk out the door, I couldn't help but see Mizore in the corner of my eye. She was already popping another piece of candy into her mouth.

As we walked down the hall, I noticed that the pink/silver-haired girl kept fidgeting around me. She kept on taking deep breathes and would always try to turn away, but only look back at me again. Was she actually interested in me? It couldn't be possible, but then what exactly was she so nervous about?

We eventually made it to the lab and started to take note of everything we would need for the lectures to come. As I sorted through material, I would tell Moka how much of everything we had and she would write it down on the inventory sheet we were given. As I had my back turned towards her, I got the distinct sense that she was staring at my back instead of looking around the room like a normal person.

"Hey Tsukune, did I do anything to scare you?" she asked dejectedly.

I couldn't help but turn around when she said this. I saw that she was looking at me with a face that was bordering crying. I shook my head because she had done nothing.

"So why are you acting so nervous? Did you hear rumors about me from when I was in middle school?" she asked with the same tone and look on her face.

Thinking back, I was really tense since the end of class. My body was probably very tense, and I was silent throughout the whole time. My natural survival instincts, shyness and underdeveloped ability to accept the whole concept of the monster world made it hard to just openly accept anyone who wasn't human. It honestly made me feel disgusted with how I couldn't look over the fact that I knew that she wasn't human. If I didn't have these eyes, I probably would have been ecstatically jumping for joy for being able to spend after school hours with such a beautiful girl. She even seemed like such a nice girl.

"Sorry, I'm just really shy. I haven't really talked to girls too much besides my cousin and Mizore," I answered her. It wasn't right for me to just treat her so poorly just because of my initial misgivings.

My response instantly turned her frown upside down. Her smile made me feel better about myself. I was at least giving her a chance to be friends.

"Would you be my friend Tsukune?" she asked with a glimmer of hope in her red eyes.

I really couldn't say no to her even if I really didn't want to be her friend. Those innocent and begging eyes just made it impossible to say no unless a person was literally heartless.

"Sure," I said strongly.

The moment I said that I felt myself tumble to the ground. This girl just tackled me to give me a hug. Was she really that lonely that she would just hug someone she just met? Who was I to complain? A pretty girl was giving me a very affectionate hug.

"This smell… I can't…"

Wait a second. Why was she smelling me? A bite into my neck soon answered my question. It was so sudden and I started to feel lightheaded. The pain didn't even hit since I was so shocked.

Moka was quickly pulled away from my neck after a few seconds by Mizore. My hand instinctively swatted to where I had been bit. I couldn't feel any holes or actual bite mark, but it still hurt from having actually been bit on. I could actually feel the tears starting to well up on the corners of my eyes from the pain.

"What do you think you were doing to Tsukune?!" Mizore cried at Moka. I was so glad that Mizore cared so much about my safety that I didn't really mind the fact that she had probably just been stalking me today.

"I'm sorry! I just lost control for a second! You just smelled so tasty that…" Moka stammered, but it only made Mizore more infuriated about what had just happened. I saw Mizore's claws reach up for Moka's throat. Whether or not the claws were actually there or just in my vision, Mizore clearly had the intent of possibly killing Moka.

I had to stop Mizore from doing something drastic. Before she could continue, I wrapped my arms around her to give her a hug. Both of her arms were restrained under my own, and her claws were gripping my arms. She struggled for a while to break free, but eventually relented once she released that the only way to break out would hurt me in the process.

"It's okay Mizore. I'm still fine so you don't have to do something I know you will regret later," I whispered into her ear. I noticed that like her appearance implied, she felt really cold to the touch. I had never felt her so cold before. Was she actually always so calm and collected because of her powers? Was she always using those candies to help control her powers too?

The silver-haired girl looked at us with an apologetic face and had a dejected air about her now.

"I'm sorry you two. I'm a vampire and I sucked on your blood after just meeting you. It's probably best if we try not to talk to each other anymore. Please just don't tell anyone that I'm a monster," she begged us. I could see tears in her eyes well up as she began to walk out of the lab.

"We're still friends right?" I called out to her.

Mizore shuddered for a second at my attempts to call Moka back. Moka even whipped her head and hair around at my question with her red eyes gazing at me. A lot of questions were clearly building up behind those startled eyes.

"Drinking blood is just something you have to do. I know that you are probably a really nice person. Just please ask me if you need blood next time," I said loudly to show I wasn't just saying it. With each sentence, I could feel Mizore begin to grip my arm tighter. It was really cold.

Before Moka could respond to my continued friendship, I asked her to go hand in the inventory sheet to Nekonome-sensei. Even though I said that, we both knew that I really was trying to talk to Mizore alone. Moka nodded and headed to the faculty office. When I didn't hear her footsteps anymore, I let go of Mizore and turned her around to face me.

Mizore was crying. Her tears were dropping to the ground and made solid clunking sounds. The tears were freezing as they fell. I hated to see her like this. She had only broken her stoic face a couple times before, but the most painful one I had seen her have before was whenever she cried. There was only one other time when I had seen her cry, and I made a promise that I wouldn't let her cry again.

"Why do you treat her so normally? Why weren't you scared of her like you were scared of me yesterday? I've known you since we were kids and you were still scared of me! You have only known her for a day! She even hurt you! So why are you treating her so nicely?" Mizore sobbed out.

I embraced her once more. She was so cold and I could feel some parts of me go numb from it. Mizore was shaking a lot from the emotional stress she was feeling. I could feel how fragile she was physically and mentally as I held her.

I whispered to her, "Because I don't want you to feel hurt from me being scared of monsters. I'm trying not to be scared anymore so that you don't have to worry. I'm not going to up and leave you because you're a monster. We've been friends forever, and I don't want us to split apart for something as stupid as this."

The shaking gradually died down and I could feel her warm up. She wasn't sobbing as much as before. I began to brush her hair like I always did to make her feel better. I held her like that for a long while with the sound of the clock ticking away. The seconds melded together as I stood there comforting Mizore and assuring her that everything was going to be alright. I could even see the sun beginning to set through the window before Mizore had finally stopped crying and gently pushed me away.

We began to go straight home since neither of us wanted to go the shop today. We were both emotionally and physically tired. As we walked side by side, I couldn't help but feel that someone was staring at us from behind poles or bushes. It was probably Tsurara considering the fact that she had always wanted to be a spy or secret agent.

I sneezed as I realized how cold I had gotten. Before Mizore could do anything like fuss over my health, my hand was already stroking the top of her head. When I did this, I didn't feel Mizore shuffle about for her candy, and I could feel the eyes watching us fade away. My gut instinct also told me that if it were Tsurara, she knew that I knew about Mizore's identity now. Tsurara knew how close Mizore and I were, and she also knew our habits.

"Tsuki! Mizi! How are you two doing?" a familiar voice resounded from a park we were passing by on our way home. It appeared that Kyouko hadn't gone home yet.

"We're fine!" I called out to her as she walked towards us. Whenever I saw her, I always got the feeling that she wasn't my cousin but my twin. She literally looked like a female version of me. She even had short hair. The only real difference between us was that she had green eyes while I had brown, and we both had almost opposite personalities. It was also a sad thing to say, but she was definitely the masculine of the two of us. Were our genders just mixed up when we were born?

"So how is high school treating you two lovebirds," she playfully teased with a wide smile on her face.

Kyouko always teased at how close we were. Every time she did that, Mizore would go blush and look away and I would just have a hard time responding. Today was different though. I was just so tired today that I just let it slipped so that I could just tell Kyouko how school was.

"It's interesting. I got nominated as class representative and probably the envy and hate of many guys in the process," I sighed out.

"Class representative? But no one wants to be a class representative," Kyouko said with a look of confusion on her face. It was only there for a second as a sudden realization dawned on her. It wasn't hard for her to figure out since she acted like a tomboy and hung out with guys more than she did with girls.

"So do you think that she is pretty Tsuki?" Kyoko asked inquisitively. She also had a somewhat dirty look on her face. Kyoko always did acts more like a big sis and occasionally bro when it came to my love life.

"Remember what you told me love guru? All girls are pretty all the time, especially if they ask," I said with an unamused look on my face.

"Oh you are learning," Kyouko said with her chest puffed out. It also seemed like her nose was growing from her pride that she taught me so 'well'. The only thing was that I was still single despite her advice, so I don't see why her ego was getting so inflated. I'm not even sure why I still remember her advice.

I was about to ask if Kyouko wanted to walk home with us, but she asked if she could talk with Mizore in private. When I asked what for, she said it was girl talk. Although it confused me at the fact that my cousin could act like a girl at times, I went home alone. It was probably best for Mizore since Kyouko was probably the only girl outside our families that she talked to. Mizore didn't even seem the least bit upset about being left alone with Kyouko. Mizore didn't get another piece of candy.

As I walked back home alone, I began to wonder about whether or not my eyes were a curse or a blessing. After today, it was evident that whether or not I had gotten my ability to see the truth the monster world would have shown itself to me. Would I have still tried to befriend Moka if the monster world had been revealed after she had sucked my blood?

As I wracked my brain for an answer I would like, only one ever came up. I wouldn't have accepted Moka. The answer felt like a kick to my side because it showed how shallow I was. Even if she had sucked my blood, she meant no harm.

If today was my first impression of monsters, I probably would be a nervous wreck if the subject of monster came up again. I'd probably hurt Mizore in the process because she too was a monster who I would have come to hate. The very thought of losing a friend that I had known since we were both little was too depressing for me to linger on.

I guess these eyes of mine are probably a blessing. I wonder what I will see tomorrow.

Author's Note(s)

#1: Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Any and all reviews help. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them by the next chapter. I do read them and consider editing previous chapters for better flow or explanations.

#2: I just realized that between this and Face of Humanity, I literally just switched the personalities between the two Mokas based on how the story mechanics worked. Go figure. At least I know that some people out there are probably really enjoying reading about how inner Moka is acting like the outer Moka. (To figcube: I guess I technically do have both versions of Moka, it's just one is just a personality and the other is just a body.)

#3: Expect Face of Humanity to be updated either late Friday or Saturday afternoon.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own R+V and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking"

"I'm back," I called out as I entered through the front door.

There were a couple of muffled sounds that I assumed were my parents welcoming me back. I had been a long day and the loss of blood from the afternoon made me feel a bit lightheaded. Wanting to just be able to go relax, I quickly bent over to undo my shoes. That was when I noticed the pair of getas. It looks like Tsurara was here. My time to relax seemed to be drifting off into the distance.

There was no sense about worrying about what troubles would come, so I just proceeded to the living room. While my mother was writing on a piece of paper, Tsurara was sitting on the couch and sipping tea. It took my mother a few moments to notice that I had walked in a called out to me cheerfully.

"Tsukune, you're home. Tsurara was about to go grocery shopping. Why don't you go help her? She is going to make that curry that you like so much."

Though Tsurara's curry was really delicious, it always came with a price. The last time I had gone over to eat curry with Mizore and Tsurara, I nearly had to sign a marital form. The time before that, Tsurara nearly bound me so that she could drag me to her family's ski and spa in the mountains. The only reason why I even hesitated knowing what could possibly happen was because Mizore was always there to calm down her mother. Even then, I always had to convince Mizore to convince her mother.

I looked at Tsurara and saw that she was giving me that look. This wasn't an offer, but a demand. I must say that those claws of ice for hands are really handy bargaining tools. The look and the possible threat made me nod my head to signal that I would go shopping with Mizore's mom.

I found myself walking back outside to head towards the grocery store in the local Junes with Tsurara. I was still carrying my book bag since I would probably just do the homework I got today with Mizore. The air was silent as I walked down the road with the kimono clad woman. Tsurara had called me out for a reason, and I was just waiting for her to speak up. It was clearly something serious. The stick of her lollipop was pointed down and indicated her being in a bad mood of some sort. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally asked a question with a flat tone.

"How much do you know?"

Her question reminded me that she had probably been stalking me earlier today. Even if I tried to pass off the comment, she would already have an idea that the secret was out. Telling her the truth was probably the only real option I had at this point.

"I can only see what you really look like now. I still don't really know what you are," I said calmly.

I was curious as to what monster Mizore's family was. We had been together for so long and it didn't feel right not to know now. The only problem was that I couldn't have asked Mizore. After what I had already put her through, just asking her may hurt her. She was obviously paranoid that I would leave her because she wasn't human. Just asking Mizore would put a strain on our friendship.

"I see. So how long have you been able to see us like this?" Tsurara asked with a slightly saddened tone.

I had really wanted Tsurara to just tell me what monster she and Mizore were, but I didn't want to press her for answers. She was Mizore's mom and would likely talk to Mizore if I did so. It was also a bad idea to ever press Tsurara for anything. Actually, it was just a bad idea to just get on Tsurara's nerve since she went to such great lengths for anything she deemed important. She did a lot to try to net me into the family when she liked me. I really didn't want to get on her bad side. I began to respond to her question so that I wouldn't get on her temper.

"Only since yesterday. My eyes changed a little bit before you met us at the old shopping district."

I noticed that my answer had slightly brightened her attitude. The stick of the lollipop she had in her mouth wasn't as low as it was before. How was when I figured out that monsters existed so important?

"Seeing as how you haven't tried running away from Mizore, what is my daughter to you right now?" Tsurara asked with a soft smile on her lips.

What was Mizore to me now? I was certain that we were still friends for now. The only problem was I didn't know how much longer that would last after what has been happening since the start of the semester. After seeing how Mizore actually felt about me and my new ability, it was obvious that our relationship would either drop to acquaintances or strangers, or it would change into something more intimate.

We had known each other since elementary school and I couldn't imagine my life without Mizore in it. Even knowing this, I couldn't say that I loved Mizore. As much as I liked her, something kept telling me that it wouldn't be right to go out with her. My existence felt like a crutch for Mizore to get through the world, but it anchored her down while helping her. I didn't want her sole life to revolve around me because she had her own life to live. She shouldn't have to limit her world to someone so insignificant like myself. I cringed at the fact about how lacking I was in anything. Mizore could do with someone who was much better than me if she would only go out and talk to more people.

"I don't know what is going to happen," I bitterly said with my face looking away from Tsurara.

I heard Tsurara give a small chuckle at my response. For some reason I felt both angry at how the woman was making light of my situation and a little bit happy knowing that my answer didn't seem unreasonable to Tsurara. Her small laugh made me feel that she might actually have an idea of what was going through my head.

"I was hoping you were going to say that you would marry my daughter like you did when you were in elementary school. Back then, you were so cute when you declared that Mizore would be your wife," Tsurara said teasingly.

I blushed at her comment. Things were a lot more simple back then, and I had really wanted to be with Mizore. The only problem was that I didn't really realize how embarrassing it was to say that at the time. I also hadn't really realized what a big deal marriage was back then. While I was in the middle of getting over how embarrassed I was over the past, Tsurara dropped the playful attitude and speak with a more somber tone.

"You know that you can't keep Mizore waiting for an answer forever. You're going to have to decide whether you will marry her or let her go. Just please make the decision soon."

"Okay Tsurara. It's just that I don't know when I'll know what I should do," I said with a slightly depressed tone.

With that, I felt Mizore's mother place her hand on my shoulder. I thought that she was trying to be understanding and tell me it was alright. I was wrong. After looking at Tsurara's face, she wasn't trying to comfort me at this point. She was giving me a look that appeared to be smiling on the outside, but her eyes and the downward tipped stick told me that I had to answer really soon. I already knew that I had to soon before she had to tell me. Both Mizore and I were in high school. The time when we would still be together as classmates was growing short.

While I was looking back at Mizore's mom, I noticed that her eyes moved from my face to my neck. Her eyes then moved back up to my face, and she was giving me a skeptical look. I could tell something was displeasing her since I felt her grip on my shoulder tighten and get colder.

"Why are you so unsure about your relationship with my daughter when you have a hickey on your neck?" she asked with irritation saturating her voice.

I have a hickey on my neck? I don't recall ever having any girl necking me in my whole life. My hand instinctively moved to my neck to as I tried to figure out what she was talking about. It was a bad move. I could feel Tsurara's grip on my shoulder tighten even more and the air grow colder. Tsurara now had a look that told me that she was considering killing me or torturing me. She must have thought that I had been trying to cover up the mark that may have come from one of two ways. In one, I was fooling around with her daughter without considering the idea of committing to a relationship. In the other, I was fooling around with another girl and leaving her daughter in the dark. Neither put me in a good situation.

"Tsukune, where did you get that mark? Just be honest with me. I won't hurt you," she said. She was definitely lying. I could feel the killing intent oozing out of her eyes.

"I swear I have no idea how I got a hickey! You have to believe me! I don't recall anyone going… for… my…" I spouted in fear. I had trailed off at the end as I realized where I might have gotten the mark from. The thought just made me smack my forehead. I had only known Moka for a day, and she was already throwing my life into a chaotic mess with the Shirayuki family.

"Tsukune?" Tsurara called with her patience evidently running thin.

"A vampire from school ended up sucking my blood today. It really caught both Mizore and me by surprise," I said exhaustedly. It was the truth, but it was just plain tiring how something so simple had nearly caused two emotional breakdowns.

I felt Tsurara's grip loosen quite a bit and the cold air disappear. The only thing was she was now gripping both my shoulders with both of her claws now and was looking at me worriedly. It was nice knowing that Mizore's mom cared so much about what happened to me. The only thing that kept drifting into my mind that ruined the moment was that I kept thinking about how she expected grandchildren from me.

After calming Tsurara down and saying how everything was okay, I managed to convince Tsurara to not stalk and freeze Moka for taking a bite out of me. We managed to buy all of the ingredients from the grocery store and talk about how school was going. She was quite surprised at how I had become the class representative given how long she knew that I had trouble socializing like her daughter, even if I tried harder to make more friends.

Tsurara also heard how being a class representative had caused me to get a hickey from Moka. The news of me having to work with Moka as representatives made the stick of her lollipop turn down. She must have been worried that I may turn into a blood bank for Moka or that Moka might take me away from her daughter. I wasn't sure which thought had actually drifted through her mind. I wouldn't be any use to her if I died from blood loss and the idea of me being with another girl would easily throw a wrench in her plans to marry me off to her daughter.

As the thought of dating another girl passed my mind, I couldn't help but feel that the image looked unnatural. I must really look down on myself if I couldn't see myself with a girl. Then again, I wasn't popular with girls to begin with. Maybe I wasn't looking down on myself and just realizing that I wasn't that much of a catch.

As we neared the Shirayuki residence, another question began to bother me.

"Is Mr. Shirayuki like you and Mizore?" I asked hesitantly.

Tsurara gave me a warm look.

"My husband isn't a snow woman because he is a man for starters," she said lightheartedly.

Her joke made me laugh a bit. It was nice to know that she wasn't too concerned about revealing what she was. It was also nice to finally know what Mizore was too.

"He is a human just like you," she continued as she wrapped one arm around my shoulder to draw me closer. Her grip wasn't cold. I could feel warmth coming from her light hold.

We finally made it to Mizore's house and walked in. I noticed that there was only one pair of shoes at the entrance. Mizore's father never really was around. Thinking about it, I had only seen him a couple of times before. Business in the mountains must always be booming if he had to always be there. I just couldn't help but wonder why Tsurara and Mizore had decided to move here if Mr. Shirayuki had to always work at the ski and spa.

Walking in, I found Mizore studying at the dinner table. It seems that she hadn't noticed that I had come in as well. That was really rare considering she was the one to always popup out of nowhere. It might be interesting to see if I could surprise her since I actually had the chance to.

I snuck up behind her as quietly as I could. I managed to get right behind her without her noticing. In a second, I managed to cover both her eyes with my hands and ask, "Guess wh…"

It was cold and I was on the floor. What just happened? I remembered that I was sneaking up behind Mizore and that was it. I could hear someone calling my name and someone chuckling in the distance. My head felt fuzzy and it was hard to piece together what was going on. I finally managed to open my eyes.

"Tsukune, are you okay! I'm so sorry for freezing you," Mizore was blurting out next to me.

When did I get frozen? That was the only thing that went through my mind as I tried to pick myself. I could see and hear Tsurara laughing in the kitchen over what Mizore was doing or had done. Looking back at Mizore, I could see that she wasn't sporting her normal stoic face and was deciding whether or not she should jump at me or find something to warm me up. I managed to place my hand on her head to calm her down.

"What happened?" I asked with a bit of difficulty as I tried to control my shivering.

Seeing as how I wasn't angry and just confused, Mizore ended up giving me a hug. She wasn't cold and felt warm, or she was at least a lot warmer than me. I guess she was just relieved that I was okay if she wasn't freezing like earlier this afternoon. I could see Tsurara giving a smile before explaining what had happened. As she was starting to explain, I was already starting to piece the facts together.

"You scared my daughter and she froze you. When she figured out it was you, she began to panic and cry over what she had done. It was really cute seeing her panic even after unfreezing you. Mizore was calling out to you worrying if you would die," Tsurara said with a lighthearted tone. She was taking this lightly, so she must have done the same thing to her husband before.

Note to self, don't ever try to surprise Mizore like that. It took me a few moments to realize that Mizore was still holding me, I began to blush. She had been holding on for a while and showed no sign that she would let go anytime soon.

"Mizore, I think you should let the poor boy go and take a bath before he catches a cold," Tsurara said gently and teasingly to break the hug. Even though she wanted Mizore to let go, her eyes told me that she enjoyed the fact that I was blushing and not pushing her daughter away.

After hearing what her mother said and realizing what she was doing, she pulled away a bit quickly. Her face was really red instead of its normally pale color. I have seen Mizore embarrassed before, but it always seemed really cute whenever she was.

I sneezed as the cold finally got to me. I quickly rushed to the bathroom to warm myself up with a nice hot shower. It would also help clear my head. As I took the shower, I couldn't help but wonder about a few things. Just what exactly was I doing? The past two days have just been too much of an emotional turmoil. It was more so for Mizore than me. I already caused Mizore to experience fear over the idea of me running away, pain from the different reactions I had shown between finding out her and Moka's identities, and anxiety over the idea that she may have hurt me.

I really had to make things up with Mizore. I have really hurt her over the past few days. This train of thought brought my mind to the locket. It looks like I really need to get down to getting it fully fixed so that I could show her that nothing would get rid of me so easily.

After warming up and getting dressed in my uniform once more, I walked down to find Mizore sitting on the couch curled up into a ball. She must still be upset that she froze me by accident. I also saw that she was reaching for a piece of candy lying on a table in front of the couch. She was definitely upset.

Not wanting to get a repeat demonstration of how well Mizore could protect herself, I walked around her and plopped myself next to her. It got her attention. I just began stroking the top of her head to comfort her. We said nothing as we just sat there and enjoyed the calm we were experiencing. We were just tired over what had happened the past two days.

"My, my Tsukune. Don't you look cozy with my daughter? Why don't you just marry Mizore already?" Tsurara playfully teased as she set dinner on the dinner table.

"But we're only fifteen," I complained because I was too tired to say I wasn't dating Mizore and because I really didn't want on Tsurara's nerve. I had already been frozen once and put through several minutes of freezing temperatures. I didn't want to add another incident to my coldest day.

"That's not a problem Tsukune. I got married before I was seventeen. In fact the women in our family always do that," Mizore's mom said with glee in her voice over the fact that I hadn't really said no to the idea of marrying Mizore.

Just because I was tired from blood loss and being cold all day, I just headed over to the dinner table with Mizore and began to eat the curry. It tasted great and managed to take my mind off of today's events. I always wondered how Tsurara made her curry taste so good. I couldn't help but just wolf down several servings before I felt satisfied.

"I'll do the dishes, so why don't the two of you go do your schoolwork?" Tsurara said as she began to pick up the dishes. I would have protested about how I should help out with the dishes, but Mizore quickly grabbed my arm and dragged me to the table in front of the couch.

After working on the homework for half an hour, I realized I really needed to pay attention in class. I was already behind because I wasn't able to focus at all today. At least Mizore had managed to focus and was explaining the concepts to me as best as she could. I would have really gotten on Nekonome-sensei's bad side if the class representative wasn't able to turn in the first homework assignment. The time flew by as Mizore and I worked at keeping our academics up so that we could pass the class.

"Tsukune, why don't you stay over for the night? It might be too late for you to go home today," Mizore's mother called out to get my attention.

Looking out through the window, I realized that it was already dark outside. I really lost the track of time while Mizore and I were studying.

"Are you sure I won't be imposing on you? I don't even have any pajamas," I responded despite knowing that Tsurara would keep pressing me to stay no matter what I could say.

"It's no problem, and I do have a set of pajamas for you," she said with a smile.

I would have asked her why she had a set of pajamas for me. Before I asked her, I realized that would have been a really stupid question to ask. This was Mizore's mom. She would do anything and did anything to try to push Mizore onto me. The question would be why wouldn't she have a set ready for me when she had a marital form ready for me.

"Let me just call my par…" I began to say before I found Tsurara handing me a note with my mother's signature and message saying that mother already knew.

Apparently Mizore's mother and my own had already decided that I would be staying the night. There was no denying the fact that Tsurara really knew how to get something she wanted. The only thing I wondered was how she convinced my mother to allow me to stay over. Mother was always a nervous wreck when it came to the idea of me having a girlfriend. Maybe Mother was okay with the idea since she knew Mizore and I were friends since we were kids. There had to be a catch since Tsurara had already set this whole evening up. What it was, I didn't know. I could have just been paranoid since we already had a long discussion over how I felt about Mizore.

After relaxing for the rest of the night and talking to Mizore, it soon got late. I bid both Mizore and Tsurara goodnight before heading to the guest bedroom.

Author's Note(s)

#1: Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Any and all reviews help. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them by the next chapter. I do read them and consider editing previous chapters for better flow or explanations.

#2: To answer the questions about pairings, this is probably going to be a single pairing (please don't start a shipping war in the reviews). I have nothing against the whole harem ending, but I honestly don't have the ability to pull it off without damaging the story. Believe it or not, I'm really not a great writer. I just happen to come up with a couple of great ideas or a few really good moments in dialogue. I'm just an idea guy who knows how to not screw up grammar (mostly).

#3: I actually leave some details out intentionally so that readers will be able to imagine what they like for the images. For instance, I didn't actually mention anything about uniforms or the length of Mizore's hair. So for any questions concerning the two looks of Mizore or what voice Moka uses, it's really up to your preference. The only time I choose one image over the other is due to plot relevance or simply because the story rules force me to.

#4: Whether or not Tsukune is going to turn into a ghoul/vampire that would be a spoiler so I'm not going to say. But I am really curious as to why everyone always ask this question when Tsukune starts off as a human.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own R+V and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking"

When I woke up, I noticed that there was something very odd. The first thing that I noticed was that I wasn't lying on a bed in the guest room. I was, in fact, standing and looking at myself in a tall mirror.

I didn't even have the pajamas from last night anymore. I was wearing a white suit and Tsurara was actually checking my measurements to make sure the suit fit just right. Most normal people would have probably freaked out about how they were being dressed by a strange woman while they had been asleep. It was quite unfortunate that I have actually become used to the idea. The only thing that surprised me was how mild this situation actually was compared to what Tsurara had tried to do before.

"Uhm… Tsurara? Why do you have a suit being made for me and how did you manage to make a suit so quickly?" I asked hesitantly.

Tsurara didn't so much as look up to see my expression and continued to work on the suit. She was weaving some needles and threads to close some seams. It was actually quite amazing at how fast her claws were moving as she worked and almost all of the stitches were made perfectly.

"Hush Tsukune. I need to concentrate. I want everything to be perfect. Once I'm done, you'll be ready to marry my daughter."

"Do you mean now or later and are you kidnapping me?"

"You will marry Mizore and this isn't a kidnapping. I'm just getting you ready for the wedding that I assume that you want to have with my daughter," she said with a smile, but with the stick of her lollipop quivering.

Tsurara resumed sowing. It wasn't long before Mizore came barging into the room. She probably had gotten the feeling that something was going to happen this morning since I had stayed over and nothing had happen overnight. Mizore never liked the idea that I was being forced to be with her, but she never seemed too thrilled about trying to convince her mother. Then again, she always had that stoic face so she never seemed too thrilled about anything.

With that, another 'peaceful' morning passed in the Shirayuki household. Mizore managed to convince her mother not to force me to marry her, but refused to convince Tsurara to stop working on the suit. Mizore said that it made me look dashing.

Despite Tsurara's great sowing skills and her speed, the process ended up taking quite a bit of time. By the time she finished, Mizore and I were forced to go running to school to avoid being late. The both of had managed to make it to the front of the school with plenty of time to spare after taking every shortcut that Mizore seemed to have found on her own time. It was amazing at how some paths were so hidden that I never had found them before today despite living in the area for so long.

"Class rep! Can you help me for a sec?"

I was going to ignore whoever was calling out to the class representative, but then I realized that I had been elected as the representative. The very thought that I had been sacrificed so quickly was a bit saddening. It was also quite sad that I had changed from being the poor schmuck that got stuck with the job to one of the most enviable guys in school because I got the job nobody wanted.

During my lack of focus, the person who called out to me walked up to me. She had short blue hair that was bundled up at the back. She also had a noticeable star accessory on one side and had a very cute face. Her eyes were a deep shade of purple. The girl also had an enormous and bouncing rack, but these features were not really the focus of my attention.

Although she was a very sexy girl, my mind was preoccupied by her other features that no one else could see. She had a pair of leathery wings sticking from her back and the nails on her hands were long and razor sharp. My body just stiffened from the fear of seeing those claws. It was still shallow of me to act so cautious around a monster classmate when I already knew two really friendly monsters. I could see that Mizore noticed my reaction and edged closer to my side.

"Class rep, can you get some of these guys off my back?" the blue-haired girl asked while worriedly looking over her shoulder. It seemed that she had attracted unwanted attention within the first few days of school. I couldn't see why not considering her looks.

"Uh… sure? I don't know how much help I will be though. Why don't we just head to class? I doubt people will be as likely to chase you there," I said with a wavering voice. I really had no idea about what to do. It wasn't like I was a tough guy and could scare off others. There was also no guarantee that the boys wouldn't be persistent enough to just tail her to her classroom.

"Thanks class rep!"

"So what class do you go to?"

The girl gave me a look of confusion. Was I supposed to know what class she was in? More importantly, was I supposed to know who this girl was?

"Class rep, I'm in the same class as you silly," she said with a frown on her face and her head tilted to her side. She flicked my forehead as well to show how upset she was.

Her answer made a lot of sense though. It was probably one of the only ways she would have known I was a class representative in the first place. I kind of felt like an idiot for not figuring that out in the first place. Mizore was even giving me a look that just stoically screamed that I had a pretty dull mind.

"Sorry. I haven't been able to figure who is who in our class. Could you tell me your name? I'm Tsukune and this is Mizore," I said quickly to try to sweep away my mistake. Just looking at this blue-haired girl made me just want to hide away my mistakes from her for some reason.

"I'm Kurumu," she said as she started to move her face up to mine so that I was looking straight into her eyes. She continued with a devilish smile on her face, "I hope we can get along." After saying all that she wanted, she skipped off to our classroom.

I was just dumbstruck for a few seconds. Kurumu had just gotten very close to me in a few seconds. Even if she was a monster, I was still a normal guy. I couldn't help but be a bit nervous over how attractive the girl was. Kurumu had gotten close enough for me to have felt and smell her warm breath. It smelled strangely sweet.

I felt a really cold pinch on my cheek. Looking to my side, I saw a slightly peeved Mizore with her claws extended to my face. She wasn't going for her hard candies and was just taking out her annoyance on me.

"Do you like that girl?" she asked with her annoyance starting to seep into her voice and the cold seeping through her fingers.

"N-n-no Mizore. I was just taken by surprise about how forward Kurumu seemed," I stuttered to calm her down.

She let held my cheek for a bit longer and gave me a skeptical look. After a while, she let go of my cheek. Mizore must have thought I had received enough punishment and just let me loose. I don't remember much of what had happened afterwards until lunch.

My mind was just preoccupied with what was happening around me. I didn't know whether or not to be worried about how mild Tsurara's marriage attempts were this time. It could have simply been that she was trying to not scare me off since kidnapping me never seemed to work out so well. It was either that or she had something strange long-term plan in which I would be forced into a shotgun wedding. Tsurara did have a shotgun and was very cunning.

Then there was the fact that I had to work with Moka for the rest of the school year. I hadn't thought about it too deeply before due to the spur of the moments, but after having a night to sleep on the thought, I was pretty sure that becoming friends with Moka may have not been the brightest idea to pop into my head. It was the right thing to do for sure, but it was really stupid. Moka had only gotten to know me for an hour at most, and she already drank my blood. I was fine with the idea that she needed blood to survive. I wasn't fine with the fact that she said that she couldn't help herself before she sank her fangs into me.

As I was thinking about the girls, I couldn't help but think about Kurumu. I only just found out about her name and found myself just thinking about her. It was really hard to focus when the image of her face drifted around in my head. She was cute and sexy for sure, but it felt strange to be so interested in a girl who I knew nothing about. I didn't even mind the fact that she was a monster. The claws still got my attention like Mizore's, but it wasn't as scary for some reason. Maybe it was just because of the fact that I was starting to get used to the idea of being around monsters. I felt a bit better knowing that I wasn't as shallow as before to judge Kurumu too quickly.

The bell rang and signaled for the students to go for lunch and for the teacher to get out of our way. Almost all of the students scrambled out through the door to beat the cafeteria rush, which honestly didn't make sense since they themselves became the rush. The only ones that were left behind by the rush were those who happened to bring their own lunches. There were only three of us, which I found surprising since I thought more people would have been inclined to having a relaxing lunch rather than an all out war.

I motioned to Mizore that we should move to the roof if we wanted to finish our lunch in time. Mizore just nodded, but before we could head to the roof, Moka came by and asked us if she could join us. The silver-haired girl was showing us that she had brought her own lunch. It wasn't too surprising since she bit me on reflex yesterday.

I didn't mind it too much so long as I wasn't going to be the menu every time I met her. Mizore seemed a bit ticked off though. She instinctively got closer to me and stood between Moka and me. The vampire cringed over the memory of how she lost control and got attacked by Mizore right afterwards.

"Sure you can. The more the merrier right?" I said to persuade Mizore.

I really didn't have to try to persuade her since Mizore tended to follow whatever decision I made. Mizore may have been giving me a skeptical look as if to question my sanity, but she went with what I wanted. It was sort of sad to see how Mizore seemed to just follow whatever I really wanted just so that I wouldn't push her away.

In any case, it was better if Moka came to eat with us. I hoped Mizore understood that I was trying to get us all to be friends. Mizore was too shy to get friends on her own. Even if she disliked the fact that girls seem to be the only people really approaching me, it really couldn't be helped. Most of the guys don't seem to really like me already because I have to spend time with Moka as class representatives.

At least Moka seemed happy. It was hard to think of any other reaction considering that she was so scared of me running away or revealing her secret to everyone. Actually, she seemed much too happy over my decision and she was already scared about me knowing a rumor about her in middle school. Was it possible that she had accidently revealed what she was back then?

The three of us made our way to the roof. It was an unpleasant walk for me. Other male students saw me walking around with two very beautiful girls and gave glares over my luck. It didn't help when I could feel Moka already smelling me while she was barely holding back some drool. Mizore managed to make the situation even more uncomfortable by getting so close to my side to guard me. It wasn't really the intention that bothered me. What bothered me were the fact that the situation now looked like I was being fought over and the fact that my arm was now freezing since Mizore was upset and wasn't eating her candy to calm herself down.

"So are the two of you dating?" asked the silver-haired girl with very curious eyes. She was squirming a bit from asking the question. Was she just nervous about Mizore possibly murdering her if the vampire treaded too close to me? The better question was that I should have been asking myself was why I didn't see Mizore's reaction as a tad abnormal and dangerous considering she had the actual ability to freeze people.

I could feel Mizore had stiffened a bit. It seems that she was really interested as well. Why wouldn't she? We have known each other for so long and we both knew that Mizore liked me. I was even sure that Mizore knew that I knew that she liked me. The only reason I could think of as to why she wasn't hounding me like her mother was because she really wanted me to be with her for the right reasons. She didn't want me to feel forced into a relationship.

"That's a hard question to answer," I said while mentally beating myself up. I was a coward and was ashamed at how I was leading Mizore on. Even if it made her feel hopeful now, it was likely to be false hope.

As I was beating myself up, several thoughts drifted through my head that made me feel a tiny bit better about my response. When we were in middle school, I had simply decided that I wasn't interested in Mizore because her love felt sort of strange and obsessive. After having realized who she was and seen how frightened and distraught she got over that fact, I started to realize that her love wasn't as strange as before. Her excessive attention now seemed more like she had a legitimate fear of losing one of her only friends. It was more a comforting. It was like being with someone who just wanted to be with me rather than kidnapping and taking me to some isolated place.

Even though these thoughts had passed through my mind, it wasn't enough to convince me that I was really giving Mizore a chance. Deep down I knew that I probably wasn't going to be with Mizore. I wasn't going to be with Mizore because I was actually scared that we our relationship wouldn't last. I was scared that Mizore would actually realize that I was just like any other guy. I was probably not as great as even the average guy since everyone usually excels at something. The only reason Mizore was interested in me in the first place was because I was the only guy around her. The only other guy she really hung out before was with Gin when we were all just having fun in middle school, but she didn't like him because he already had a girl he was interested in and was a bit of a pervert.

Why was I leading on Mizore? I knew that I was too scared to ever become her boyfriend and that she wanted me to be the one to approach her. If I really wanted what was best for her, I would have straight up told her that I couldn't see us dating. At least she would direct her search elsewhere and actually find someone. Was it that I was still hopeful about the idea that we could actually be an item that was keeping me from outright rejecting her?

Lunch passed by as I thought to myself about how complicated my situation was. Moka tried to pass the time by trying to get closer to Mizore. It seems that the vampire realized that in order to become my friend, Moka had to show that she was a nice girl to Mizore. I was left out of the conversation for the most part mostly because I decided to let the two sort out the problem themselves. If I tried to jump in, I would probably become a nice dessert for Moka and subsequently make a vampire flavored icicle.

"Are you two monsters?"

"Why do you ask?" I ask while holding back the truth. I wanted to know more about Moka and now seemed like a good chance to get more of an idea of who she was and what she went through. I wanted to know about what rumor Moka was talking about when we first met.

"Well the fact is that every human I met has always tormented me after finding out that I was a vampire or just refused to believe me when I said that monsters existed. I had to move a couple of times when I was caught drinking from a couple of transfusion packs to prevent my anemia," Moka said with a hurt look.

"Do you hate humans?" Mizore asked without changing her expression.

"I haven't really had a great experience with humans. I know that there are probably some really nice people, but every human I met treats me like a freak. People doused me in water to see if I vampire's were really weak to water and then continued to do so just because they wanted to. I hate the fact that we either have to hide away from them or suffer from revealing what we really are. It's like having to deny who you are in order not to be tortured."

"Maybe they were just scared that you would suck their blood. You kind of did that to me when we first met," I said with instant regret.

I just said something that effectively said that Moka was a bad person. Even worse, I made it sound like that all vampires were expected to be bad. Most would probably say that vampires were bad, but it sounded horrible after being around Moka for a day. Sure she fed on me, but I knew she just simply lost control for a moment.

Moka showed me a face with a mixed reaction. Her face was blushing. She was probably embarrassed over her lack of control. Moka's red eyes told me a different story. They look hurt over my statement, and I knew that she wasn't being too weak hearted. My statement was hurtful. Nevertheless she still continued the conversation.

"I've never fed on anyone before. You were my first Tsukune…" she said with a cute look on her face as she fidgeted uncomfortably.

Was I missing something? The vampire was literally giving off a pink bubbly aura when she said that. Moka was making it sound like her feeding from a live person was meant to be intimate. Was she actually interested in me now that she had taken a sip of my blood? An even worse idea popped in my head. What if she was fidgeting because she wanted more blood?

I noticed that Mizore wasn't too pleased. She was popping one of her hard candies into her mouth to calm herself down. It seems that she also got the same vibes I was feeling from Moka. The only question was which of the two thoughts was she thinking.

"Anyways… Wasn't there someone who tried to stop the bullying? I find it hard to believe that everyone would simply jump into the bullying or leave it be," I asked to get out of the situation and realizing that I should never be a counselor if I didn't want to increase the suicide count.

I was really bad at poking my nose where I shouldn't. Neither answer would elicit a positive response. If there was no one who tried to help her, it would just mean that she just had that much more time to feel miserable about hiding in the human world. If people did try to help her, she probably felt guilty that they had to get involved or were bullied as well. There was even the chance that those who did try to help her would turn their back on her if the bullying got to rough. In all honesty, it felt like people decided to leave her behind considering how used to the idea she seemed to be to the idea that I would have left her.

Moka didn't respond for a few seconds. Her past must have really been bad. Her downcast red eyes reminded me of Mizore. I had been wondering why monsters hid themselves from the world. Was this why Mizore wasn't able to tell me what monster she was? Did misery just come to those who revealed who they were? I somehow couldn't stomach the idea that Mizore and Moka had to hide who they were in order to get along with everyone. It just wasn't right to have someone deny who his or her existence or force someone to have to lie on a daily basis to his or her friends just so that they wouldn't run away.

The bell rang and we all got up to head back to class. I had to say something so that the lunch wouldn't have ended on such a sour note. It wouldn't have been right to cause the group to think about how bad Moka's time in middle school must have been.

"Moka, whatever happened in the past is just the past. Just remember one thing. I don't care what you are. I may be a human, but I don't care if you are a monster. I'll always be your friend."

With that I started to head back to class. I didn't look back to see either of the two's reactions. It took them a few seconds to catch up. Mizore managed to get by my side and I say a tiny smile appear on her lips. I guess she was just feeling happy over the fact that I didn't really care about the whole monster business and only really cared about getting to know the person. I felt my hand move up to pat her hair.

It wasn't long before I removed my hand since Moka came up to us. I could feel that she was smelling me again despite having eaten lunch. I turned just in time to see a vampire actually pounce on me in the hallway. She whispered something in my ear, but I didn't really register what she said since Moka proceeded to actually sink her fangs into me.

It was a real shame for me that that had to happen in the halls. It was lucky for Moka that it just looked like she was being very intimate with me instead of sucking my blood. It was unfortunate for me because I just became the guy that all guys in the school would more or less hate. Mizore trying to help pull Moka off didn't really help too much with my reputation.

Although I had received the angry and jealous stares on my male peers, I couldn't help but feel that one of the pair of eyes in the crowd wasn't looking at me with anger or jealousy.

Author's Note(s)

#1: Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Any and all reviews help. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them by the next chapter. I do read them and consider editing previous chapters for better flow or explanations.

#2: To answer sanddrake111, I'm planning on limiting the story to a few of the original characters and a couple of OC's to focus more on character development. I would say that it would be more of a quality over quantity type of thing.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own R+V and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking"

The bell rang and the last day of school for the week was over. I think I may be in serious trouble for school. Ever since I became friends with Moka, I have found myself drifting off during class. The reason as to why never really left my mind considering I could still feel the two small punctures on my neck. What's more, every guy held some sort of vehement distaste towards my existence that only grew to staggering heights during lunchtime.

It was only the first week and people already thought that I had managed to catch Mizore and Moka. Even though I mentally complain about my situation, I couldn't even attempt to explain the situation to anyone. I had to say that Moka and I were an item now because of how little self-control she seemed to have whenever she could smell me. There was no way for me to say that her 'intimate' interaction with me wasn't really intimate without making Moka look like a slut or revealing that she was a vampire.

At least Mizore knew the whole situation and wasn't going to pester me about it too much. Even saying that, I knew she was still going to try to convince me to ditch Moka for my health. I even found a tiny part of me wanting to agree with Mizore. The whole bloodsucking relationship I seemed to have with Moka was quite taxing on me. I'm pretty sure that my body wouldn't last much longer if this daily event continued.

The only reason why I couldn't and wouldn't outright push Moka away was because I couldn't bring myself to hurting her. Moka had revealed her identity as a vampire to both Mizore and me. Moka was clearly hurt over the fact that she couldn't fit in because of her identity. By trying to cut off any relationship with her, it was basically telling Moka that I hated monsters or at least vampires.

I got up to leave the school since Nekonome-sensei didn't give Moka and me anything to do. I really wanted to just get out of this school and avoid the glares from the boys and a few of the girls. Part of me also wanted to attempt to escape the inevitable feeding and just rest for the weekend before I collapsed from blood loss.

I motioned to Mizore since I was also planning to go to that creepy shop today to get more details about the mirror that had given me the ability to see monsters. I was quite certain that Mizore would have been interested in the details as well because I could still feel that she was still a tad bit worried about how I saw her.

"You go on first Tsukune. I need to talk to the vampire for a bit," Mizore saidly coolly.

I felt my jaw just drop from the absurdity of the situation. Mizore had just decided to spend the afternoon with someone other than me by her own free will. She never did that before. My childhood friend even had difficulty talking to Kyouko, and she was like an older sister to her.

As nice as it was to see Mizore take initiative in making friends, I couldn't help but worry about what her real intentions were. Mizore was very likely on the verge of murdering Moka earlier this week. Was I going to have to worry about her trying to do so again today? I could feel sweat start forming on my skin as my mind began to race through thoughts of Mizore and her claws attacking Moka.

"What's with that look Tsukune?" she said in an annoyed tone as she pulled on my cheek with one of her ice claws.

"Uhhh…. Just a bit shocked that you wanted to hang out with Moka," I said as I snapped back to reality.

"I need to talk to her about something important. Is there a problem with me talking with her?"

"There's nothing wrong. It's just that I never really expected you to go out and become friends with someone so quickly."

"Who said anything about being that vampire's friend? I just need to set some things straight. I want to make sure that the pink-haired girl knows what lines not to cross."

There was the Mizore I knew. It was disheartening to know that she didn't seem to want to be friends with Moka. It was also disturbing to hear Mizore talk about setting rules when I could see her claws.

"Don't go hurting her. Okay?" I pleaded with her at eye level.

She nodded and walked to the silver-haired (pink-haired?) girl's desk. Mizore didn't bother to talk and just started to drag Moka along the floor and out the door. I could even hear a few people start murmuring about a catfight in the class and could feel that a few of my remaining peers were now giving me looks. It was just too awkward to be at school. I quickly left and tried to avoid as many people as possible.

As I was heading to the old shopping district, I noticed that the air was eerily empty. It was too quiet for my taste. I found my distaste for the silence to be a new experience for me. I had never been too disturbed by a lack of noise before. Mizore was never a talkative person to begin with. A lot of the time we spent with each other was just as quiet as it was now. Why was the silence so disturbing to me now?

I quickly brushed the thought away as I neared the shop.

"Yo! Class Rep! Where's your harem?" asked someone who was obviously from my class and gave a resounding smack on my back as he called out to me.

Turning around to face my attacker, I instantly saw a pair of leathery wings and a tail flitting about. The sight made my stomach churn as I started to imagine the worst possible scenarios in my head. Could anyone really fault me for my slight prejudice? A guy that I already knew didn't like me had probably stalked me all the way here in a fairly deserted place in front of a shady shop. There also the fact that he was a monster. Even if I was trying to not judge a person based on looks or species, the situation just did not bode well at all.

I bleakly responded, "You're just misunderstanding. I don't …"

"Have a girlfriend, right?" he interjected, but in a tone that didn't sound sarcastic.

"So you understand?"

"Yeah man. Were both incubuses right? I mean how else would a guy like you be able to attract the attention of such babes. Just save some girls for me too okay?" he responded with a devilish grin on his face.

I just nodded my head to his remarks to avoid any trouble. I couldn't feel too much ill will from the way he spoke, but something he had said was still bothering me. Fortunately or unfortunately, my classmate continued on before I could address the misunderstanding.

"Just out of curiosity, why are you only targeting other monsters? I mean, I applaud you on what you been able to do in the week. I do mean it is impressive roping in the vampire considering their nature, but why the snow woman and succubus too? I mean they don't serve any reproductive purpose for our kind. Hey… Why are you giving me that look?"

Apparently as he had been talking, my face had started shown a mixture of emotions. Part of me was disgusted by the fact that the guy was talking about Moka as some sort of trophy for some deranged lustful conquest, and another part of me was confused over the whole topic about reproduction that suddenly came up. The way he spoke about reproduction made it seem like an important business towards his kind, but the way he spoke about women made it hard to actually completely comprehend. I was also slightly confused over whom the succubus was, but I didn't really think about it too much over the other details.

I decided that the misunderstanding had gone on too long and just simply explained to the boy that I was a human and not an incubus as he had expected me to be. My classmate expressed several emotions over the news. I could see doubt, surprise, and panic show through his face in rapid succession. The reaction was mildly interesting because it was nice not being the one going insane over what was going on, but still was a bit disconcerting because I could still feel that I would somehow suffer being caught up in the guy's confusion.

The guy came to his senses after a while and gave me a troubling look over what he should do with me. Considering the fact that he had just spilled the beans about the existence of the monster world to a human without knowing that I already knew monsters existed was a bit disconcerting. I was mentally debating about whether or not he would silence me through torture or death, or if he would just try to get me to keep it a secret. Even if I was scared shitless with his demon-like appearance, I also remembered the fact that random people don't normally turn up dead the next day too often. Even if they did, the culprits behind the murders weren't normally teenagers or kids. This was really the only logic that was keeping me from frantically running away because I figured that the people most likely to reveal the secret by accident were students and not the criminals shown on the news.

"Okay… Okay… So you're a human. But then how come you seem completely relaxed around Moka. I know that you must know that she isn't human," he stated with a calmer demeanor than what he had had moments ago.

"Wait… You're not going to try to get me not to talk about the monster world?" I hesitantly asked without addressing the other option of outright removing me.

While giving me an incredulous look, he said, "Well you haven't spilled the beans about Moka being a vampire despite all of the blood-sucking. Any normal human would have just freaked out, and the rumors would already be spreading around the school by now. You, on the other hand seem to let her continue. So it doesn't seem necessary to me to get you to be quiet."

I gave a sigh of relief from his response because it gave me the peace of mind I was really looking for. My life was not in danger or in harm's way and that was all I could ask for. After having most of my current troubles vanish, I calmly explained about the events that had transpired a few days ago and why I was going into the shop today.

"I see. So you can see my true form right now," the incubus said with his tail waving about.

"There's something I have been meaning to ask you. How is it that you know what Moka and Mizore are? Whenever I see a monster, they don't seem to realize that the person I notice is a monster," I asked after finally getting everything else settled.

He just gave me a look that said I was stupid for not knowing.

"Dude, keen observation is the way to get the ladies. This is basically incubus 101… Oh right, you're not an incubus… Well if you are really curious, I know that Mizore is a snow woman because of the chill she seems to emit and that Moka is a vampire by just looking at how dazed you seem to be after working with her."

His reasoning made sense. In fact, it also kind of made sense as to why he thought I was an incubus now.

As I found myself thinking about how easy it would be for a normal person to figure out who was monster so long as they realized monsters actually existed, the classmate asked me a fairly awkward question.

"So I know you are probably just being nice to Moka, but what is the deal with you and Mizore? Are you guys an item?"

"N-n-no," I said bashfully before feeling a chill run through my spine. Before feeling the entire cold fury, I quickly, and possibly hostilely, asked, "Why interested? I thought you had no interest in her."

"Chill out man. I was just curious. But the way your shaking says otherwise," he said with a devilish smile.

If only he knew how I interpreted his words. Fortunately, I felt the cold feeling I was getting lifting.

"Well Tsukune, I'll leave you to your business. By the way, you should at least learn the names of our class if you are going to be the representative. My name's Koji," the incubus stated as he began strutting off.

"Hey! You guys elected me for that position," I jokingly yelled out to him.

Koji just laughed and continued walking away while I started to head into the store.

I was greeted with a welcome back by the creepy shop owner with eerily glowing eyes. Before I could ask him about the mirror, he started speaking to me again with an ominously echoing voice.

"You have come back here to talk about the mirror I presume."

I nodded and was about to ask him for more details before he interrupted me again.

"The mirror you touched was a gift I received long ago. Well, it wasn't so much as a gift as it was a customer simply trying to get rid of it. You see, though this mirror is a fine work of art made near the beginning of your kind, it holds an interesting secret. Do you want to know what it is?"

"The power to allow others to see past the way the world views them?" I hesitantly answered only to receive a small chuckle emanate from the man under the hood.

"Not quite young man. You see this mirror actually has a name. It is called Lilith's Mirror. Do you know why it is called that?"

This shop keeper is really cruel. Not only did he make my flesh creep with the way his eyes glowed and voice echoed, he kept asking me questions he knew I wouldn't know the answer to. The way he spoke to me made me feel as though I had no control over anything and that the only reason why I was here was because he willed me to be here for his entertainment. I could only shake my head no in response to his question due to the chill he was sending throughout my body. I could only hope that what he said wasn't something horrifying.

"That's because this mirror contains the soul of Lilith, the first human woman. It contains all of her essence. It even contained all of the feelings she harbored after she had become a demon. I am quite surprised you got off with so light of a punishment after disturbing her. Most of the stories I hear about the men afflicted by the curses that Lilith deals out to them end tragically. In almost every single incident they go insane from the hallucinations of the curse," he told me with a crooked grin spreading throughout the only part of his face that was visible.

Though I knew I was just a chicken at heart, I felt that anyone that was in my position would feel all of the blood drain from their veins after hearing about what could happen to them. I didn't even have to ask for a way to counter the curse because I already knew that there was probably no way to remove the curse considering the fact that he didn't seem like he was in the business of actually helping people. I didn't even think about the lack of the solution to my eye problem too much due to the fact that I feared how my future looked.

"Hey! Shop Keeper! Stop making me look so bad! Those thieves had what was coming to them!" a girl screamed in a small, high-pitched voice.

The new voice had startled me a bit and I began to frantically look around to find whoever was screaming. In my desperate attempt to find the girl, I found myself turning around back and forth to no avail. I just couldn't find the source of the voice.

"Quite the jumpy one isn't he?" the voice called out to me.

Hearing the voice again, I was to locate where it was coming from and saw myself staring at what looked like a green haired fairy fluttering inches away from my eye.

"Hi there. I'm Lilith. You shouldn't listen to that creepy old man behind the counter. He just has an obsession with making everything more foreboding or creepy."

"Uhm… It's nice to meet you. My name's Tsukune. You aren't anything like what the shop keeper described you to be."

"Careful boy. The greatest trick the devil ever played wasn't convincing the world that he did not exist but that he was an agent of god," the man cautioned me with an unconvincing grin on his face.

It was quite obvious that I wasn't going to receive any peace of mind from either side, so I decided to just drop the subject. One side just made my skin crawl and I heard too much to have faith in the other. I wanted to leave as soon as possible, but I still had one final piece of business to do in this store.

"Before I leave, can you tell me if this locket has some curse or spirit in it that I should know about? If not, can you fix it for me?" I asked while pulling out the jewelry meant to be a gift for Mizore.

"It has neither boy. And the repairs will take some time. I expect no payment this time. When I'm done, the locket will appear on the pillow on your bed," the hooded shop keeper replied while taking the locket.

I just kept my mouth shut and began walking for the door because this man was someone I just didn't want to be around. Knowing him, I wouldn't have to tell him where I lived and how to get in because he probably knew the answers. The fact that the shopkeeper didn't stop me only affirmed what I was really hoping was just a misunderstanding on my part.

As I exited the building, I was greeted by Tsurara's strained smiling face. I wasn't ever going to get a break was I?

Short Shop Stop Story

Shop Keeper and Lilith: Thank you and come again Tsukune.

…

Lilith: He isn't coming back is he?

Shop Keeper: No chance in hell.

Lilith: You know, for a shop keeper, you really suck at your job.

Shop Keeper: And for someone who looks like an innocent fairy you were quite evil.

Lilith: Really now. What did I do to him?

Shop Keeper: You cursed him.

Lilith: But I do that to everyone who touches me in a funny way. Besides, I went easy on him.

Shop Keeper: But you cursed him. He only came back to see if he could get his eyes fixed.

Lilith: But you scared him away by acting so ominous. And like I said before, I went easy on him with the curse.

Shop Keeper: I should have just pawned you off to my brother when I had the chance.

Author's Note(s)

#1: Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Any and all reviews help. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them by the next chapter. I do read them and consider editing previous chapters for better flow or explanations. Also give me thoughts about the new OC and how he came off to you.

#2: Sorry for the long hiatus, but I ended up having all my spare time filled with classes taught by professors who don't know how to explain anything during the school season. As for why half the summer went by without an update, I ended up getting an internship that took up 9 hrs everyday of the week. So I'm also a bit out of practice so the writing may be a bit below standard for now.

#3: Yes I know the quote for the devil's greatest trick is convincing the world that he did not exist.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own R+V and no copyright infringement is intended.

"Speaking"

I found that my Sunday morning was started by a woman's loud shriek from who I could only assume was my mother. The sudden noise caused me to fly out of bed in sheer surprise and worry as to why Mother was screaming. In my panic, I found myself tumbling and crashing into any object that I had left lying around in my room before I could reach the door.

After fumbling with the handle for a bit, I tried to get down the stairs. If I had kept my cool, I could have avoided one of the worst falls of my life. But due to my haste, I ended up landing on my side with a sickening thud.

"Are you okay Tsukune?" a girl said in a familiar melodious tone that definitely did not sound like Mother.

Opening my eyes, I was greeted with the image of a certain silver-haired and red-eyed girl.

"Is my mom okay? I heard her screaming," I managed to cough out through my pain.

As I was struggling to get on my feet, I noticed that my question had gotten Moka fidgeting about. Her hesitation to answer was starting to make me nervous. Forget why Moka was here to begin with, what exactly happened to Mother for Moka to have so much trouble to answer me?

After a few moments, Moka had managed to muster whatever courage or effort to say, "About that Tsukune… I'm not sure how to put this, but your mother just passed out. I'm not exactly sure as to why. I just came over to ask if you were home and then she screamed out something. After that she just kind of fainted."

It took me a few moments, but I could figure out why Mother had fainted. It wasn't every weekend a pretty girl came to ask for your son. That was especially so for me considering how absolutely invisible I was in the crowd.

Scratch that. Mizore came by almost all the time so I guess technically what I said didn't apply to me. But there was the fact that Mizore was a childhood friend that Mother knew about. Mother, who had probably assumed that I would end up marrying Mizore, was probably shocked to see another girl at the doorstep looking for me.

"Uhmm… Tsukune… Did you tell your family about me? Specifically about that?" Moka nervously asked me.

I had forgotten that mothers with sons don't normally scream at the sight of a pretty girl. Mother just happened to be very protective and easily influenced by those TV programs discussing how the current generation of children were spoiled, perverted, and all around hopeless. Why were such programs so popular and why was Mother so interested in them? It wouldn't have been much of a problem to be interested, but I drew the line when Mother tried to ship me off to England so that I could learn 'proper gentlemanly' behaviors.

In any case, I could understand why Moka was so worried. She was a vampire that was ostracized by whoever had found out about her secret before. Also given the fact that most of our encounters ended up having me donate blood, Mother's frightened reaction would have been the reasonable result.

"Don't worry. I haven't told anyone Moka. Do you want me to tell my family though?"

Moka's hands were soon waving in front of her to show disapproval of the idea, but she showed the slightest hint of a smile on her face over the consideration.

"No, no. But I'm really glad that you didn't tell anyone about what I am. I was worried that your family wouldn't let me be friends with you if they found out that I was a vampire."

"Wait a second there Moka. I made a promise that I would be your friend. I was always taught to never break a promise. So you don't have to worry about that," I said as I was giving her a smile.

Despite the fact that I had said that comfort Moka, I found her crying instead. What did I do?! Is she crying from tears of joy or is she just crying from bad memories? Hopefully it wasn't the latter. Regardless, I had to do something to get her to stop crying.

As I started to step towards Moka to calm her down, I found Mother staring at us from the hallway.

"Oh god it's worse than I thought," Mother faintly said before fainting again.

This did not bode well considering the people she would try to consult over this matter if we did not clear this up today. I could feel a shiver throughout my whole body considering what would happen if **she** heard of this misunderstanding. Knowing Tsurara, she might already know that Moka was here.

After I had managed to calm Moka down, she and I proceeded to place Mother on the couch. I then put on some clothes. When I finished with my morning rituals, which were hastily done, I found that Moka had made some tea for the three of us.

"You didn't have to do that Moka. You're the guest here," I said with a slight sense of relief due to the fact that the tea would be good to calm me down from the morning events.

"It wasn't a problem Tsukune. I felt it was the only thing I could do to make up for this morning's excitement," she quickly said as though she were afraid that I would feel guilty for having her make tea.

As we started to settle down and sip our tea, an awkward silence soon fell on the room. What did one do with a pretty girl alone in the house? The image of the bedroom quickly ran through my mind. The very thought had caught me by surprise over how unlike that was of me, and I soon found myself choking on the hot tea, which was quickly burning the wrong pipe.

"What's wrong Tsukune?! I didn't make the tea too hot did I?!"

Moka was soon at my side patting my back. Given how close she was, I could smell something nice coming from her. I also instinctively knew that she could also smell me.

"It's nothing. Just a strange thought came to mind. But I do have a question to ask. How and why did you come over today?" I hurriedly ask to keep my neck safe for the weekend.

"Mizore had told me that I was causing you trouble by drinking your blood too much. I didn't realize that I was taking too much. I really should have more self-control over your… delicious… blood…" she said while giving me a hungry stare.

"Moka, not here. We don't know when Mother might wake up."

"Huh… Oh right. Back on topic, Mizore had also said that you seemed to be having a hard time focusing in class because of me. So I came here to help you study since I'm the cause of your lack of focus," Moka said with a bright red blush spreading over her face. She must have been embarrassed over how she had nearly done what she considered to be the source of my problems.

Before I could thank her, Mother was starting to make sounds as she was beginning to regain consciousness again.

"Are you okay Mother?"

"I had the strangest dream. For some reason I thought that there was a really pretty girl looking for you and then you made her cry. For a second there I thought that you had become… a… playboy…"

Mother was staring at Moka at this point. My eyes also darted to Moka's face and I noticed that her eyes were still a tad bit puffy and red.

"Hello Mrs. Aono. I'm Moka Akashiya, and I'm from the same class as him. We're both the class representatives for our class. I came here to ask if Tsukune wanted to study with me since I'm always causing him trouble," Moka said in one of the sweetest tones I have ever heard in my life.

I wasn't sure if Mother was still shocked over the fact that her son may possibly need sexual education or if she just thought she was dreaming again, but she just dully replied, "I see." After noticing the tea, she took a sip. That's when life suddenly sprang in her eyes again.

"Tsukune, since when did you make tea instead of pulling the bottled tea?" she asked with surprise.

I was somewhat hurt by the comment since it seemed like a simple thing to do. The only problem was that I couldn't ever recall making tea myself. But I never really found that a problem since the only people who ever came over were Mizore and Gin. Since Mizore never liked hot tea, which makes a lot of sense to me now, we had always just opted for the bottled tea.

"About that Mother… Moka made the tea…" I replied with a nervous chuckle.

"Tsukune, you shouldn't make our guests do that. That's just bad manners," Mother said with a slightly disappointed tone.

"It's okay Mrs. Aono. Tsukune had to put on some clothes over his underwear, and I just felt that I should make the tea to say sorry for surprising you," Moka quickly said to set things straight. I couldn't help but notice that as she mentioned why I had not brought out refreshments, her face turned a light shade of red.

Even though Moka had said that to help the situation, her words had excited my mother instead.

"What?! Why were you showing her your underwear?" Mother asked worriedly.

"You screamed and I ran down as fast as I could. I didn't exactly think about what I was wearing," I said with a slightly annoyed tone.

The conversation pretty much followed the same way for a few more minutes as Moka and I tried to sort out every misunderstanding Mother had. It was a fairly strange experience given how talking to Mother like this showed just how much she worried about me. It also showed how little she thought of me at times.

"In any case, it's nice to meet you Ms. Akashiya. Please continue looking over my son," my exhausted Mother said before leaving.

"Sorry about that Moka. My mother is a bit excitable. I hope it wasn't too much of a bother."

"No it wasn't. It was actually quite pleasant. I could tell that your mother really cares about you."

I noticed that as she mentioned that, Moka had given a sudden downtrodden expression. I decided not to pursue the matter too much for today given how I didn't exactly want Moka crying in front of Mother again. Even then, I couldn't help but want to wash away the depression.

"So why don't we get started on studying together. I really appreciate the help."

"Yes, why don't we," she replied with a smile.

The study session wasn't that long given that we hadn't been in school for that long, but I could already tell one thing. Moka was ridiculously smart. Just listening to her fluid explanation and tips for figuring out how to do things was already enough to tell me that she was probably smarter than the rest of our classmates. Why exactly was she in this school? Given how smart she was, she could have gone to a much better school.

After finishing the session, I noticed that we had only taken up about two hours to cover about three weeks of the lecture material when we were still only a week into school. How exactly did I get to know such a genius? Even if we were in the same class, I tended to be one of those wallflowers like Mizore. Looking at Moka and how she seemed like she was about to drool, I managed to answer my own question.

Even though I was not very fond of having myself turned into a quick drink, I felt that I owed Moka for all the help she was giving me. The problem was that it was probably a really bad idea to have Moka feed on me when Mother was still recovering. So taking that into account, there was really only one thing to do. I also had to do it fast given how close Moka was starting to get.

"You seem hungry. Do you want to go grab a bite outside? It'll be my treat," I hurriedly said while frantically looking about to make sure that Mother wasn't anywhere nearby in case Moka couldn't resist the urge to drink.

"Huh… That sounds really nice," Moka said while wiping her mouth.

"Mom, I'll be going out to get a bite to eat now," I yelled.

"Just be safe."

It wasn't very long after we had left that Moka jumped onto me. The only thing I could hope for was that Tsurara wasn't watching at this moment and make a big misunderstanding over what was going on. Who was I kidding? Of course she was watching and making a big mental fuss over how she would 'convince' me to marry Mizore.

I could even feel someone staring afar at this moment. The only thing that was strange was that I wasn't getting the chills like I normally would if Tsurara's flip had been switched. The feeling of being watched was probably just me being self-conscious if I didn't have the cold to confirm if Tsurara or Mizore was watching me.

As I continued to contemplate my situation, I noticed that I started to become harder to think. This was bad. I had forgotten that Moka was drinking my blood at this moment. If I didn't stop her soon, I might really lose consciousness.

"Moka, I think you might be drinking a bit too much right now," I managed to gasp out.

It took a few moments for Moka to register what I had said. When she did realize that she had indeed forgotten that I also needed the blood she was drinking, she quickly let go and had a deep shade of red spread across her face from sheer embarrassment. She spent the next moments fidgeting as she tried to work up an apology.

"Sorry Tsukune. It's just that your blood is so tasty. Your scent just makes it so hard to control myself sometimes."

Despite how lightheaded I was and how close I was to have actually been sucked dry, I just chuckled over how cute Moka acted sometimes. How could anyone have rejected her friendship just over the fact that she was a vampire? I can admit she does go a bit overboard with drinking my blood, but other than that, she seemed far too nice to be considered scary.

"It's okay Moka. I did say that I would give you some blood if you just asked. So how about we go get some food for me? Your treat?" I asked selfishly, but jokingly.

We both just started laughing over how absurd my 'selfish' side looked. We spent the remaining afternoon eating and exploring the shopping district. I found myself playing in the arcade and watching a movie with Moka. Although my wallet was definitely a lot lighter, I couldn't help but feel that today was worth it.

Author's Note(s)

#1: Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Any and all reviews help. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them by the next chapter. I do read them and consider editing previous chapters for better flow or explanations.

#2: The next chapter is either going to be about Tsukune's date or the night part of this chapter. Leave a review saying which you would rather read. Just note that the night part of this chapter will happen even if you vote for the date option. It'll just come after obviously.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I do not own R+V and no copyright infringement is intended.

"See you tomorrow Moka!" I exclaimed as my classmate went off back home.

I was fine yelling out to Moka because I hadn't once felt the normal chill I would if Tsurara had been following us. I found it strange that she wasn't tailing us, but what was even more peculiar was the fact that I couldn't get rid of the nagging feeling that someone was in fact watching the two us during the whole day.

It was probably just my imagination that I had eyes watching me and even if it weren't, it didn't matter so long as it wasn't Mizore who saw me.

…

Since when did I start thinking like that? I found it slightly disturbing, but I couldn't help but consider the sound reasoning behind it. I already had rumors about me dating Moka. Even if this didn't help put a stopper to the rumors, it really wouldn't change my situation at all. The only person who would care too much about this would be Mizore, who I was quite sure would understand the situation so long as I explained things to her. If she had just been watching from the sidelines, it would be more of a pain trying to correct whatever misunderstanding she had.

…

Despite all of my reasoning, I still felt something was bad about what I had done. All I had done was take a friend out to have some fun, but I still felt guilty for some reason. It wasn't even like Mizore and I were dating. Why exactly was I feeling so horrible about the situation the more I tried to justify it?

I'm thinking too much about it. I probably just felt guilty because I actually knew that Mizore actually cared about what I did and got jealous easily.

As walking into my house and mentally arguing with myself about what I had done, I was greeted by my parents sitting on the couch. Mother had a worried face, while Father just had an exasperated look. Even without having to hear what they had to say, I already had an idea of what had and was going to happen.

"Tsukune, what is this about a girl other than Mizore coming over to the house today?" Father asked with as much enthusiasm as he could muster despite the fact that he just looked almost dead.

My mother was just nodding to the side. It was already clear that she had hammered some idea that I needed special education since meeting Moka. I could also tell that Father probably was just doing this to appease Mother's wishes. He was just trying to make Mother happy and calmer about Moka coming to see me. Why was Mother so worried?

I sat on the couch and just calmly told Mother and Father, "A classmate of mine just came over to help me study because she thought that she had been causing me too many problems during the week."

"See honey. I told you it wasn't anything to be overly worried about. Besides, what's wrong if a girl comes to see Tsukune. He's in high school now," Father said with a slightly disappointed sigh after I had told them why Moka was here. At least Father didn't think of me as a loser.

"But Dear, you should have seen what happened. He made this very pretty girl make us tea," Mother insisted worriedly.

Both Father and I just gave her a confused look. I was just confused because Moka and I had explained the situation earlier. Father was just confused because he probably just thought it was Moka's way of trying to impress Mother.

He also gave me a perplexed look. I couldn't tell if he did so because he just thought I was dense or was possibly hiding something about my relationship with Moka.

Mother continued by adding on, "What's worse is that he had made this girl cry while he wasn't completely dressed."

That would definitely set off red flags off in any sane parent's head. It wasn't just an issue about Mother being overprotective, but a legitimate problem most of society would think ill of. Although I had explained it to Mother, she didn't even seem to want to listen to what I had said. My only hope was to be able to explain to Father that I wasn't doing anything cruel to Moka.

"So what? It's not like he was stark naked and for all we know maybe this girl confessed her love to Tsukune but got rejected," Father said while stealing some glances at me with a rather hopeful light in his eyes.

The fact that Father was not that concerned about the situation only hammered the reality that my Mother was prone to panics while Father was too carefree. He clearly wanted to know if I was getting popular in school. The answer to that was obviously no, but he was a businessman that always looked at technicalities. So technically speaking, I did essentially double the number of female friends I had and they bother were very clingy for reasons. Even though I thought about this, I would never tell Father or Mother this.

"I already told you that Moka is just another classmate. We just happen to know each other because we were both the class representatives of the class. She was just crying because she was worried that I had been speaking badly of her when Mother started screaming," I said with as much conviction I could muster into my voice.

Father gave a slightly disappointed sigh. I couldn't tell if his reaction was just a normal thing or not. I could understand the fact that a father would want his son to be popular, but the expectations Father seemed to have were kind of pushing the limit. I also could just be over thinking the whole sigh. Maybe he was just tired out since Mother was making a big deal over something caused by being such a worrywart.

"See honey. I told you that you were just overreacting. Also, did you really start screaming when you saw the girl? If that's the case, why did you automatically come to the conclusion that Tsukune was in the wrong. It isn't exactly normal for parents to start screaming whenever a girl comes over. You even got Mizore all riled up when you told her that one of Tsukune's friends had come over."

The image of me defecating all over myself was the only thing that passed through my mind when I heard what Father had just said. Mother had told Mizore about what had happened, and what's more, Mother didn't have all the facts straight before talking to Mizore. No matter how you looked at the situation, nothing good could come of this.

I didn't even care what Mother and Father were doing at this point. I just had to go explain things to Mizore. Regardless of the fact that I wasn't dating Mizore, it wasn't right to give her a false impression of my friendship with Moka.

_But isn't this the perfect excuse?_

…

What was that just now? For some reason I had just felt as though another voice had popped into my mind. I couldn't describe the experience exactly. It felt like the voice was still my own thoughts, but also something I did not exactly feel as though belonged to me.

I swept my concern under the rug because the voice did bring up a fair point. Though I had come to terms with the fact that Mizore was a monster and that her obsession was just fear that I would have abandoned her if I had known her true identity, I still couldn't come to around to accepting her love. I couldn't help but feel as though her love was still a replaceable crutch. Her obsession, though mostly explainable, made me feel as though anyone would have done the job. I also had other reasons to not to accept her love, but thinking about them just made me depressed.

In any case, I still didn't find myself in any position that would get me to date Mizore. Wasn't it more despicable of me to lead Mizore on? Was it right for me to keep dangling a sliver of hope in front of her if in the end it wouldn't happen? I couldn't help but feel worse about myself for having to come to such a situation. Despite my lack of anything notable, I might have been more like Koji than I had thought.

The very thought that I was like the incubus who I had earlier scoffed at for his general view on women made me scoff. There was no way I was like him. I treated my friends with respect and had no ulterior motives. I saw them as people dear to me and not just as objects to sate my lust or to simply reproduce with.

But there was one fact that remained that made all my arguments invalid. Koji had the impression that I was an incubus that was even better at the job than he was.

I couldn't trust myself at the moment. I felt as though my judgment was too clouded at the moment to really know what the right thing to do was. Who could I turn to for advice about what I should do about the situation?

The only people who I could try talking to were Mother, Father, Tsurara, Moka, Koji and Gin. I could already rule out my parents only simply because of how eccentric they all were and how Mother was the one who got me in this predicament. She also still seemed to be reluctant to accept the fact that I hadn't done anything to Moka. I dare not to disturb Tsurara for obvious reasons.

Knowing Moka, telling her about this would only get her down. Even if I wasn't the brightest guy around, even I could tell that Moka would naturally assume that it was her fault or that I was blaming her. It also would just add more fuel to the fire if Mizore found out that the person that I consulted had been Moka.

Koji was also out of the question. Though I did think Koji was an okay person, I did not exactly agree with some his views. I got the fact that he was an incubus and that it was in his nature to be loose in terms of relationships with woman. I can't exactly blame him for that, but that didn't mean that I had to follow his upbringing. There was also the fact that I didn't want to be like him. This feeling could have been due to pride or my recent confusion about my character. I didn't care which was more accurate at this point. I just didn't want to see my friends as anything less.

Thinking through all my options, Gin was the only real choice that I had. He was a mutual friend back when Mizore and I were still in middle school. The guy knew what the me that I found more me than now. Sure he was a bit of a flirt, but he could still differentiate right from wrong. He even settled down when he found the right girl. Gin was honestly the perfect guy to ask advice for dealing with the opposite sex.

When I finally came back into focus and saw that while I was contemplating my options, my parents had gone from arguing to swinging around the room dancing. I could not even fathom what had happened. Were they just reminiscing about their own days in high school?

Seeing as I had disappeared from their little world, I went to go call up Gin on my cellphone. I could only hope that the newspaper company wasn't making him work overtime today. I still couldn't believe that he decided to quit school last year and managed to land a job so easily. It just went to show how talented he was in getting the scoop.

I was pleasantly surprised when Gin picked up right away. I guessed that he was able to submit his story early.

"Sup Tsukune, haven't talked to you in a while. Gotten popular with the ladies yet?" he asked flippantly.

I knew that he was just joking around, but his comment hit a tad bit close to home.

"Tsukune? Can ya hear me?"

"Ah… Yes I heard you. The truth is that I could use some advice," I nervously said.

Gin then mumbled something. It was clearly not directed to me, but the only things that I could catch were the letter u and number 2. Was he setting his code for some account?

"What were you saying just now?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Ah sorry. I was just talking to Sun about how youtube… in any case what do you need?"

Gin was clearly just trying to avoid the subject. It definitely had to do with some account so I didn't press too much into the matter. Even if we were friends, it would just be stupid to let others know your passwords.

"I actually needed help because I think I might be in trouble with Mizore. Mother might have told her some inaccurate things."

"Let me guess the rest. A pretty girl came by your house and your mother naturally thought you were two-timing on Mizore."

"… Gin, how exactly do you know this?" I asked. Who wouldn't have when he had hit all the important details so quickly?

"Dude this is your mom we are talking about. She tried to hit me with a frying pan because she thought that I was a bad influence on her 'poor, misguided baby'. She even took my playful talk with Mizore as me trying to snatch her away from you," he said with a slightly annoyed tone.

"Sorry about that Gin," I said apologetically while recalling how he had to go around school with a large lump growing on the top of his head. He couldn't even wear his signature headband due to how much it would hurt.

"Anyways, I assume you need advice on making up with Mizore right?"

"Actually that wasn't quite it," I slightly mumbled as began to brace myself for what Gin would think of me when I would tell him what I wanted.

"Huh? But I thought ya said ya might be in trouble with Mizore. Isn't that what a person would normally ask for when this topic comes up?"

"I wanted to know if I should try explaining things to her…" I managed to say with my voice trailing off.

"…"

"Gin?" I asked fearing that he had just outright hung up on me.

"Is this about how you don't think that you and Mizore could be an item?"

"That about sums it up."

"Look Tsukune, why don't you just date Mizore? I mean you the two of you seem like you were made for each other. I'm sure you got your reasons, but it's kind of hard to fathom at this point," he said with a slight tone of annoyance. I couldn't blame him for it. If I were in his shoes, I probably would have done the same thing.

"I'll tell you my reasons some other time. If it is any consolation to you, I did end up crossing off a few of my reasons earlier."

"But you still don't intend to date Mizore?"

"…"

"Whatver man. Just make sure you explain those reasons to me the next time I'm in town. I mean I gotta talk you out of this stupid mentality that you have," Gin said with a sigh.

"Sure Gin. The next time you're here, we can have a nice chat about it."

"In any case Tsukune, I can't exactly give you the advice you are looking for. I want to help Mizore because she is my friend too, but this is your love life we are talking about. If I were to make the decision for you no one will be happy. Besides, I'm not you. Just ask yourself what life would be like when you make your decision. Ask yourself if you can live with whatever decision you want to make," Gin said before hanging up.

It only it was that simple Gin. But he was still right. Who would be happy if the decision was made by an outsider rather than the person in question? Mizore would surely have been heartbroken if I had chosen to tell her the truth and that I had done so because Gin told me to. It would have just been me trying to be nice to Mizore because I was told to do so.

I decided to follow Gin's advice and tried to imagine what life would be like between the two decisions.

Telling Mizore the truth was simple enough. I just saw my life following the same routine as it had been for the past week. There wouldn't really be any problems until the time came that I needed to make a decision of whether or not I would date Mizore. Truth be told, the question wasn't really deciding to tell Mizore the truth or not. The real question was answering the one Mizore and virtually everyone else has been waiting on now or later.

As I tried to imagined life if I hid the truth from Mizore, I felt my entire being gripped with fear. Mizore was someone who was always with me. I became afraid that she would disappear from my life. Although I knew that this would eventually occur if I chose not to be with Mizore, the very thought that she wouldn't be by my side terrified me. I didn't understand though. Why was I so terrified of a future without Mizore next to me? I had imagined that situation many times before, but the thought had never frightened so much.

It was pretty despicable of me. I had always been trying to get Mizore to realize that we would just be friends, but gave her the hope that there was a chance for us to date by not pushing her advances too much. I even ended up making her fend off her own mother who was trying to help her daughter get the guy that she liked. Now I had the perfect excuse to end this discussion here and now, yet I couldn't convince myself that I wanted a future without Mizore. I still couldn't find myself dating Mizore and I didn't want to hurt her further by leading her on, but I wouldn't let her go.

It was sad and ironic. This whole time, I thought that Mizore only held onto me as a crutch. I thought that she needed me to the point that it killed her social life. Though this was true, it was more so for me. I had forgotten that I needed her as well. My life up until this point and in the future revolved around her. I needed her in my life.

Even though Mizore wanted to be with me, she didn't push further because she feared my disapproval. It was the opposite for me though. I wanted to push Mizore away for her sake, but I couldn't imagine life without her. We were both just so helpless without the other. This thought just made me chuckle sadly.

In any case I needed to make a decision.

Author's Note(s)

#1: Please favorite and follow if you liked this story. Any and all reviews help. Send questions and I will probably respond to some of them by the next chapter. I do read them and consider editing previous chapters for better flow or explanations.

#2: Had a hard time for this chapter only because how the initial set up of the story is. The premise of the story makes it really hard to make a convincing story about the whole friends versus lovers in perspective of the human side. It would be a lot easier to do if I was going to go for the multiple perspectives like I do for my other story.

#3: The next chapter is going to be the bad end chapter for this story before the actual continuation. It is essentially a "what if" and will not be necessary to understand the story too much. It may contain some things that I may put later into the actual story though. If you don't like bad endings, just skip the next chapter.


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